No election in high security risk areas of North East – Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Tuesday, said it will not conduct elections in what he described as “high rate security risk” areas of the North-East states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.

Addressing journalists at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, the commission’s chairman, Attahiru Jega, said while elections will hold in the three state, some places are just no-go areas.

“Some areas are high rate security risk, for instance, places occupied by insurgency. Elections cannot hold in such places. In medium rate security risk areas like Maiduguri, elections will hold there with maximum security. Also, you have places that are low rate security risk; elections will sure hold in such areas too.

“INEC has always said it is prepared to conduct elections in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) – including the three North East states experiencing the challenge off insurgency.

“The Commission, however, will work closely with security‎ agencies who have constitutional responsibility for securing the election environment,” Mr. Jega said.

He added, “I do not entertain any doubt as to the capacity of INEC to conduct elections in these states (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe).

“But, in these states, there are areas occupied by insurgency and obviously it stands to reason that elections are unlikely in such areas. But that does not mean we are not going to conduct elections in these three states.”

Mr. Jega said as part of preparations to conduct elections in the crisis-stricken states, the Commission “set up a task force which has made recommendations as to how we can enable the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in these 3 states to vote‎”.

He said modalities to cater for the voting need of the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, would be announced after the commission’s stakeholder meeting holding Wednesday.