AHEAD of the 2023 general elections, the people of troubled Birnin-Gwari in Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State said they have started reaching out to various terrorist groups for the successful conduct of the poll in the area.
The Chairman of the Birnin-Gwari Emirate Progressive Union, Ishaq Kasai, in a statement on Saturday, said the development became necessary in view of the prevailing security challenges where about 100 communities were sacked while no fewer than 50,000 were internally displaced by terrorists in the LG.
The statement was titled, ‘2023 general elections: only reaching out to terrorist groups will allow successful elections in Birnin-Gwari.’
According to him, reaching out to the various terror groups in the area for a truce will enable the locals in 10 out of the 11 political wards in the area to exercise their franchise to elect their leaders in next week’s elections.
The BEPU boss noted that only local arrangements with the terrorists could facilitate the locals to participate and vote in the forthcoming election in the LGA that had over the years been ravaged by the activities of the hoodlums.
Kasai also hailed the Independent National Electoral Commission for relocating some of the polling units from the sacked communities to various points where the respective eligible voters relocated and were residing as Internally Displaced Persons.
He said, “As we are approaching 2023 general elections, our major concern is for our people, including the internally displaced persons, to be given the 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 in relocating some of the Poling Units 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 with 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 the local government.
“There are 11 political wards in Birnin-Gwari and 10 of these wards are facing security challenges that if measures are not proactively taken will hinder the election processes.”
He added, “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 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 10 political Wards with hundreds of Poling Units in Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area.
“For now, due to security problems, 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 threats.