2019 elections: INEC sets up committee for Benue IDPs, others

The participation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in 2019 elections has been further guaranteed, as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday, said it had set up a special committee to work out legal registration and voting frameworks for the displaced.

The INEC National Commissioner in charge of Benue, Anambra and Enugu States, Barr Festus Okoye, revealed this during an interaction with Media executives and Civil Society Organisations in Makurdi, the Benue State capital.

Okoye said INEC was determined to ensure that all those displaced as a result of crises are not disenfranchised in the forthcoming general elections.

He explained that the commission had entered into partnership with the National Emergency Agency and State Emergency Agencies across the country to collect data of IDPs in various camps, to ensure that no one was left out, or fall into the hands of desperate politicians and their agents, who go about enticing them with money and de-possessing them of their Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs).

He decried poor collection of PVCs throughout the country, and urged the media and Civil Society Organisations to help the commission in the sensitisation and dissemination of information on need to collect them, as government spent so much money to produce PVCs.