Independent National Electoral Commission has said that the conduct of 2015 elections in the North-East depends on the advice, support and co-operation of security agencies.
This statement was made by the Chairman of the Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega during a two-day strategic stakeholder’s policy dialogue on promoting peaceful elections in 2015. The event was organised by the United Nations Development Programme, Democratic Governance for Development Programme.
Jega said “As an election management body, INEC is prepared to conduct elections everywhere in this country. As for the security challenges, INEC is not a security agency; we rely on the advice, cooperation and support of security agencies to be able to secure our materials, to secure our personnel and to enable us to have a free atmosphere within which to conduct elections.
“We are hopeful that before February 2015, a lot of security challenges will be addressed so that there would be sufficient normalcy to conduct elections at that time. So, at this point, I can tell you that we are doing our best to ensure that elections are conducted everywhere in this country in February of 2015.
We have to remain hopeful; we all know that our security agencies are doing their best. You can’t give up hope, you can’t just assume that things will still be getting from bad to worse; you have to assume and hope that things will get better and our hope is that things will get better before February, 2015.”
The Chairman also promised that that the commission is making arrangements to ensure that Internally Displaced Persons register and participate in the coming elections.
Leave a Reply