IDPs should not be disenfranchised —Nwankwo
Who are the internally displaced people and is there hope for them to vote during the coming elections?The Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, are people who have been forced out of their abode or area of operation as a result of several factors; some could be natural disasters, insurgency and war as is going on in […]
Who are the internally displaced people and is there hope for them to vote during the coming elections?
The Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, are people who have been forced out of their abode or area of operation as a result of several factors; some could be natural disasters, insurgency and war as is going on in the northeast of the country. There is concern that we have a lot of these IDPs who have been relocated to camps – some even away from their states. Majority have relocated to the homes of family members and friends who are catering for them.
The consequences are that a lot of them are forced out of their living environment. They are homeless, even if they occupy people’s houses and they are unemployed. With respect to the elections in 2015, they have been displaced from where they registered to vote. It is a question of whether they will be able to vote during the 2015 elections. And for us in civil society, particularly working towards elections, this is an important issue. Nobody is quite sure of the number but the official number is indicating more than 1.5 million, but of course when you put together the number that have been forced out of their environment to other areas , it represent a significant population and we feel that significant population should not be disenfranchised from voting during the 2015 elections.
So what is civil society doing about that?
We have been raising concern about this; we are drawing attention to the African Union Charter that requires the state to ensure that IDPs are given the opportunity to participate in government, to vote. We have drawn the attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the National Assembly as well on the need to ensure that provisions are made so that IDPs can vote wherever they may be. INEC needs to put in place logistics and machineries to capture people who have been displaced and who are unable to vote in the areas they originally registered in.
Some of them are outside the country, how do we intend to capture them?
Well, a lot of them are across the border. We have seen reason to push to countries that are less endowed than us; that have better security than Nigeria. Though it is a major concern, we don’t know how possible it is to have diplomatic arrangement that will make it possible for them to vote, this might be a bit of a challenge. But for those that are within the country but dispersed to homes of family members and friends, and those dispersed to camps, we feel provision should be made for them to vote.
Can elections hold in the three North Eastern states in the face of insecurity?
State of emergency does not say election cannot hold. We think that government should make and provide adequate security and create a proper environment that will make people to vote. But the impression we get now is that this government is intentionally allowing the crisis in the North East to go on. Some even suggest that this government is part of the reasons why the crisis is continuing for political reasons. We think the government should take steps to provide security to enable people to vote.
This country is enormously rich, budgets are passed, the monies are reported to be spent, yet we do not see the consequence of that in terms of the great efficiency that the military should possess in terms of sophisticated equipment. So for a lot of Nigerians, the question is, where is the money going to, who is spending the money and for what purpose?
Certainly it is not going onto the expenditure of the military, which is why soldiers wearing bathroom slippers go to warfront; soldiers receiving bullets on their palms counted for them to go and fight insurgents. These insurgents are actually tagged an army whose weapons were captured from the Nigerian Military itself. So a lot of us are concerned that this state of affairs is continuing. We feel that this government is culpable and should be held responsible for the failure of the military and needs to reverse the current strategy of not funding or equipping the military to fight decisively this war against insurgency.
Are you then suggesting that election should take place in those LGAs that have been captured by the insurgents?
Certainly, if INEC cannot go into an area to conduct elections, then there is no way you can have INEC do the poll in such areas. But the point that is important is that why is the Nigerian government allowing this to go on, is it being done for political reasons? If it is being done for political reason, then I think the government needs to be brought to account for its failure and that I think is the most important thing. Nigerians need to begin to ask, why are the insurgents seizing Nigeria’ s territory? Why did the President say that Boko Haram has not captured one more territory in a week? What kind of government will operate that way?
Should state of emergency be extended in such regions?
The National Assembly has made the point that there are some official powers in the constitution allowing the president to deploy the armed forces across the country. State of emergency or no state of emergency, the President has the power to use the armed forces to curtail insurgency. He should use those powers. You don’t need a state of emergency to exercise your powers. The President should exercise it. We don’t see anything extraordinary about a state of emergency apart from protection of human life and properties.
How will you react to the com-motion at the National Assembly?
I think that the action of the police in invading an independent arm of government is grave constitutional violation. It is certainly not acceptable; the action demands that somebody be punished for it. If the President has the full knowledge of this action, then, he should be brought to account for violating the constitution of Nigeria. If the Inspector General of Police had acted without the authority of the President, then the President needs to take action by dismissing him from the position. But certainly, what has happened is grave, unconstitutional and unacceptable. This really shows that people in power can violate the constitution in such a way that has happened. This is Nigeria, our country. Some individuals, whether they are in government or not, have no right to violate our constitution, the way the police have done.
The President has not authorised this and he is failing to act to bring anybody to account, then he himself should be held accountable and be brought to account for violating the constitution. I think it is important to commend the legislators for the action they took in challenging the police; the legislators should be commended. This is the way we fought in the human right community against military dictatorship. We cannot allow a civilian dictatorship to come into place, so we commend the speaker and members of the House of Representatives who jumped the fence and entered in the National Assembly and sat to bring this gross violation to a halt. It is a courageous and brave action on the part of the National Assembly and we must commend these legislators for defending democracy in Nigeria.
How will you react to the impeachment of Ekiti speaker by seven out of 26 members?
Well, this is again some of the violations that are going on and which are threatening our democracy. Certainly those mem-bers of the Ekiti State House of Assembly who attempted that know that they are acting unconstitutionally. Is there a likelihood of the CSOs coming out to the streets to protest like before?
Going out means that people are being sensitised to go out and take back their government. This government is desecrating governance the way it is going. It is going to be up to Nigerians to say enough is enough. I think we have gotten to a point where Nigerians will begin to ask how they will take back governance from people who have taken it at this time and are desecrating democracy.