by Kolapo Olapoju

A former Chief Justice of Nigeria,(CJN), Mohammed Uwais, has warned against exempting the troubled states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno, from participating in the general elections.

On Thursday, January 15, while speaking to journalists at a sensitiZation workshop with a theme: “Nigeria 2015 Elections and Beyond: Stakeholders Conference on the Roles of the State and Non-State Actors in Mitigating Violence in Elections”, Uwais stated that there would be a “lacuna” if the Internally Displaced Persons, (IDPs), were not allowed to exercise their franchise during the 2015 polls.

Justice Uwais said: “When the Electoral Act was enacted in 2010, this sort of situation of having IDPs was not envisaged, so there is no provision in the law on how to deal with it and the constitution is also silent but the way to go round it is to get the National Assembly to amend the Electoral Act and make provisions to make it possible for the IDPs to exercise their franchise.”

Uwais urged the NASS to fast track the amendment of the Electoral Act to allow the IDPs to vote in the election if the elected representatives in the legislature are willing.

He said: “It all depends, if the National Assembly is willing, it can pass a law within two days, then it goes to the president and the president within a day or two can also assent to the bill just as he said ‘there is certainly a lacuna.”

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had earlier expressed reservations on the possibility of elections holding the in the Boko Haram ravged states of the North-East.

Isime Esene