MT ELGON, BUNGOMA COUNTY. As many parts of the country witness low tallies of people turning out to register as voters due to various reasons, it has been established that the shadow of the defunct infamous Sabaot land Defence Force (SLDF) is still looming large to the youths in Mt Elgon who are potential voters.
According to administrators in the area, most youths are shying off from being registered as voters due to the fear that the Biometric Voter Registration – BVR gadgets will identify them as among the perpetrators of the heinous acts meted on the people of Mt Elgon and its environs from the year 2006 to around 2009 when the ragtag group was dismantled by security forces including the military that was deployed at the Kapkota base in Cheptais Sub-county.
Cheptais Deputy County Commissioner Stephen Momanyi told the West Media in his office that most youths have refused to embrace the voter registration exercise due to rumors that went round the region that if they visit the registration points, they will be detained by security forces as a result of identification by the BVR kits that they were involved with the SLDF group that was responsible for loss of lives in the region.
“The challenge that we are encountering here during the voter registration exercise is that there have been rumours that if the youths register through the BVR kits, they will be arrested and be implicated for involvement with the former SLDF group that unleashed terror to the residents of this sub-county up there in Kopsiro and other parts of the mountain, hence the youths are not coming out to register,” said Momanyi.
He dismissed such rumours, saying that they are just meant to scare off the youths so that they don’t embrace their constitutional right of participating in the electoral process.
“I want to refute such rumours in the strongest terms possible that no youth will be arrested through the voter registration process, because they are not in any way related to criminal records. I urge the youths not to fear but to come out in large numbers to register during this registration period and exercise their constitutional right,” said the administrator.
He further noted that many youths are turning out to apply for the national identity cards in the area hence it beats logic when the same youths do not turn out to register as voters.
On security issues in the region, he said that different security personnel have been deployed in the area in order to beef up security and he warned the youths in the region against being used by politicians to be involved in criminal activities or rather electoral offences during the campaign process.
Many parts of Bungoma county including Sirisia and other constituencies have recorded low numbers of voters who have registered in the ongoing one-month exercise that now enters its fourth and last full week.