2023: Ortom Seeks Polling Units For Benue IDP Camp

Before the general elections in 2023, Benue State’s governor, Samuel Ortom, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to create suitable accommodations for the more over two million internally displaced people living there.

On Tuesday in Abuja, he made the announcement at a roundtable discussion sponsored by the Platinum Post Newspaper and titled “Contemporary Security Challenges and their Effects on 2023 General Elections.”

The governor urged INEC to establish polling places at IDPs’ camps and hire its residents as ad hoc staff during elections. The governor was represented by Prof. Magdalene Dura, his Special Advisor on Millennium Development Goals.

This, he said, would ensure credibility of the elections at such centres while giving them a sense of belonging.

“There is need for government and INEC to ensure credibility of the electoral process,” he said.

He also expressed concern over the fate of over two million IDPs in his state whom, he said, had been rendered homeless as a result of insurgency.

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He appealed to the Federal Government to come to the assistance of IDPs in Benue as it is doing to other IDPs in other parts of the country.

“There is lack of equity and justice in Nigeria. INEC needs to have comprehensive data on the IDPs so that they can create polling units for IDPs,” he said.

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, who chaired the occasion, stressed the need to ensure the safety and security of voters, election personnel, materials, candidates, party agents, observers and media practitioners during the electioneering process.

Represented by his Chief of Staff, Usman Mohammed, Ganduje called on the electorate to eschew acts of violence and other negative tendencies that could mar the conduct of 2023 general elections.

NAN

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