By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The Benue state government has expressed concern over the inability of several Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in the state to obtain their Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, to enable them cast their votes in the coming polls.

The Executive Secretary of the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, Dr. Emmanuel Shior raised the concern while flagging off the monthly distribution of food and non-food items to IDPs at the SEMA headquarters in Makurdi.

Dr. Shior who stated this during his recent routine visit to the IDPs to interface with them and to find out if they were duly registered and had received their PVCs said, “I found out that almost all of them registered but not all of them have collected their PVCs.

“They are not happy and I am not happy myself. The fault is not from Benue state government, not from SEMA but from the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

“But the ones that have their PVCs, a good number of them, are ready to vote.”

The SEMA Executive Secretary who commended Governor Samuel Ortom for making monthly provision for the IDPs in order to ensure their upkeep, also thanked the Governor for improving the month’s intervention.

He said, “This month the Governor made provision for 10,000 creates of eggs, 20,000 tubers of yam, four trucks of rice, blankets, mosquito nets, noddles and several condiments among others.”

He reiterated that he ensures proper management and monitoring of the distribution exercise to make certain that not one of the items was mismanagement or didn’t get to the IDPs.

Meanwhile, the Public Enlightened Officer of INEC in Benue State, Mr. Terkaa Andyer in his reaction to allegation by the SEMA Executive Secretary said “the commission went round to capture all IDPs who had voter cards.

“The commission profiled them in such a way that it was possible so that their cards could be printed for them. Unfortunately, most of them are rural dwellers. The information we harvested was not good enough to print cards for them.

“The fault was not from the Commission but from them (IDPs) as they could not give sufficient information to enable us print cards for them. The Commission did not make any deliberate plan to disenfranchise the IDPs in the State.”