President Jonathan Promises Elections will not be Postponed
President Goodluck Jonathan has assured Nigerians and the international community that there will be no further postponement of the 2015 general elections which are set to hold on March 28 and April 11.
The President made this known on Friday while hosting members of the diplomatic corps at his residence at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He also said that contrary to the belief of many Nigerians, the postponement of the polls does not mean security forces will conquer the Boko Haram sect completely before the general elections.
He said that it is constitutional to postpone the polls as three states remain under the control of the insurgents. The six weeks provided was to enable the security agencies to tackle the insurgents in the affected states and ensure they are stabilised.
He said, “Security reasons were alluded. Some people asked, will Nigeria wipe out Boko Haram within six weeks? And I said no. The security people are not saying they will wipe out Boko Haram before elections will be conducted.
”But there are Boko Haram related-security issues and there were other security issues that were noticed during the period of campaigns which if we don’t prepare properly and modify the security architecture we normally use for elections, the country may go up in flames.
“This period will give them the opportunity to clean up the three states. If at all they cannot clean up the three states, at least, two states will be recovered completely and more local governments even from the remaining state so that elections would be conducted even in Borno State.
“So, when they say security issue, it was not limited to Boko Haram and the security people didn’t say they must wipe out Boko Haram before the elections would be conducted. Even in 2011, there was Boko Haram and elections were conducted.
“Even if we don’t take over all the territories in Borno state, definitely in Adamawa and Yobe states, we’ll take over completely and even Borno state the headquarters of Boko Haram.
”Even if we don’t take over completely, at least, 70 per cent of that state will be free for elections to be conducted because democracy can only be meaningful if people are allowed to select who rules them. In a situation where you have maybe 30 per cent of the people having voters cards to vote, that is some kind of security threat.
“So, we’ll surely conduct elections as scheduled, I promise you. So, communicate this to your home countries. As scheduled and on the 29th of May, inauguration will take place to bring in the next president of this country.”
The president said that the country’s security agencies would find it easier to tackle Boko Haram, with the resolution of the AU and neighbouring countries like Chad, Cameroon, Niger to contribute in the battle.
He continued, “Before this time, Boko Haram would create problems in Nigeria and sometimes go to Northern Cameroon to hide. At times, they’ll create problem in Cameroon and move into Nigeria.
”It was always difficult for Nigerian security personnel to move into Cameroon because there was no intentional agreement binding force, but now, the barriers have been handled and so we would move faster and in the next few weeks, you’ll witness significant changes.
“You can’t talk about wiping terror because it operates differently but when you talk of holding territories, we’re more committed than ever before because of the level we’ve reached and the cooperation we’re getting from neighbouring countries in terms of taking these territories back so that these internally displaced persons can be relocated to their communities.
He thanked the envoys’ countries for their sympathies and empathies in the fight against Boko Haram, saying “with their support, we’ll win the war on terror and conduct our elections.”
