Adamawa State Governor James Bala Ngilari was on Tuesday, January 20, 2015 jeered by a crowd after calling for the postponement of next month’s election to April.
The Governor made the call at a stakeholders workshop held on Abuja with the theme ‘Internally Displaced Persons and the 2015 general elections’.
As the governor made his case, screams of “No, No, No” were heard from the crowd and it took the intervention of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),Attahiru Jega to pacify.
Governor Ngilari sighted Boko Haram insurgents and insecurity as reasons why the polls should be shifted.
He said: “In Adamawa, I can truly tell you that seven local government areas are under siege. The supposed peace we have is just the peace of the graveyard. To say that the security situation in these local governments are sufficiently stabilised so that we can have these elections on the February 14, 2014, to my mind is fierce.
“That is my position. Anybody is entitled to his views; that is our position. I am the chief security officer. Even as I speak now, this morning Mr. Chairman, there was an attack on Uba on the Borno side which directly affects us in Adamawa.
“Before last Saturday, this situation could be said to have been stabilised until this attack was unleashed on Gombi Local Government. With that attack which completely reverberates across these seven local governments, of course, people would first and foremost be concerned about their dear lives.
“For the first time and about the same time, there was an attack on Biu which has never happened before. Experience has shown that they will go back and regroup and you can never predict when and where they would attack again.”
Jega, while responding to the plea, said INEC did not have the necessary powers to postpone the elections.
It would be recalled that Governor Ngilari had contested the Peoples Democratic Party gubernatorial primaries but lost to former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
