Borno PDP rejects voting in IDP camp

From Mustapha Isah Kwaru, Maiduguri

The Borno state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday called on the Federal Government to stop the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) from conducting any election at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps established in some parts of the state.

Rising from an emergency stakeholders meeting held in Maiduguri, the party argued that there is nowhere in the constitution where it says elections should be conducted in IDP camps and that it was unaware of the INEC’s rationale behind the ongoing distribution of permanent voter cards at the IDPs camps.

The convener of the meeting, who is the party’s deputy gubernatorial candidate for the 2015 general elections, Ibrahim Birma accused INEC of bias over the issue.

Birma, who briefed newsmen over the issue, alleged that INEC in Borno state seems to be dancing the tune of one political party, which is bent on having the commission to conduct elections in the IDP camps.

The party also alleged that voter cards are being issued out to wrong people at the camps, while others were asked to sell their own.

Birma queried INEC to explain the fate of other IDPs who are staying outside the state, adding “What happens to all the IDPs from Borno who are at camps in Abuja, Lagos, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and the rest of the states.

If IDPs in Borno must cast votes during the 2015 elections, what happens to those who fled the state due to insurgency? What explanation do they have to the constitution, which said elections are to be conducted at units? I find this laughable”.

He therefore called on the federal government to ensure that everybody go back to where they registered to cast their votes.

“We want all the road close to be opened so that everybody will go back to where he or she registered to vote in the elections, as conducting elections in Maiduguri and Jere alone cannot be an election. All the local governments in the southern Borno have people who are ready to vote, nothing was taken to them, but they are distributing PVCs at IDP camps. For who?”, he asked.