Birnin Gwari Emirate Progressive Union (BEPU) revealed that the forthcoming 2023 elections may not hold in the state.
The BEPU stated in a release made available to journalists by its Chairman, Ishaq Usman Kasai in Kaduna on Saturday.
This is coming a few days to the Presidential and National Assembly elections, as well as the March 11 Governorship and state assembly elections.
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It held that elections cannot hold in Birnin Gwari local government area of Kaduna State, except negotiations are held with terrorist groups troubling the area.
BEPU, however, called for negotiations with the terrorist groups to allow the elections to take place like it was done during the recent Census Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD).
The statement read:
“As we are approaching 2023 General Elections, our major concern is our people including the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to be given opportunity to exercise their franchise at their respective secondary locations by voting their choices in the election without any fear or intimidation.
“At this point, we wish to commend the effort made in this regard by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in relocating some of the Poling Units (PU) from the sacked communities to various points where the respective eligible voters relocated and are residing as IDPs. This will, indeed, go a long way in providing them an opportunity to exercise their franchise.
“The second issue is on facilitating movements of the Election Officials and materials on the Election Day to various units in the Local Government especially to areas where security problems are high, such as the Eastern and Western parts of of the Local Government. There are eleven (11) political wards in Birnin-gwari and ten (10) of these wards are facing security challenges that if measures are not proactively taken will hinder the election processes.
“However, we are aware of the arrangements being made locally to address these challenges especially by possibly establishing contact with the respective terrorist groups in the most hostile areas in order to allow successful conduct of the 2023 Elections in the area. It is noted that, this same approach was adopted successfully during the Census Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) that took place recently where, with the permission of the bandits, all the areas were visited by the Census functionaries and demarcated.
“We therefore observe that, based on experience, only local arrangements through diplomatic means in form of reaching to these terrorist groups for negotiation diplomatically could allow the 2023 Elections to hold successfully in about ten (10) political Wards with hundreds of Poling Units (PU) in Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area. For now, due to security problem, INEC has already cancelled one PU in Gayam Ward of the LG. This cancelled PU is among the 240 PUs recently cancelled by INEC in Nigeria due to high security threat.
“We are therefore advising the Authorities to engage relevant stakeholders especially community leaders in all arrangements for success of carrying out 2023 general Elections in Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area.”
