Why you should collect your PVCs and vote

A two-year notice of commencement of the 2019 elections is down to just 10 days! Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission had announced the dates for the 2019 elections on March 9, 2017 and released the Timetable and Schedule of Activities on January 9, 2018. One of the key activities conducted by the Electoral Management Body is the phased Continuous Voter Registration which began on April 27, 2017 and was suspended on August 31, 2018. I must say that a lot of enthusiasm was shown by many Nigerians who trooped out to register during the voter registration.

In the course of the exercise, INEC also addressed requests for transfer and replacement of lost or mutilated PVCs.  Also, previously registered voters who had yet to collect their PVCs were given opportunities to do so.  As a result, some 14,283,734 additional registrants were captured during the exercises. This brought the total number of registrants from 69,720,350 as of April 27, 2017 to 84,004,084. While giving the breakdown of the registered voters on Monday, January 7, 2019, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said, “In the final register presented, Lagos State accounted for 6.6 million voters, followed by Kano with 5.5 million registered voters. When viewed according to regions, the North-West has the highest number of registered voters with over 20.2 million, followed by the South-West with 16.3 million voters. The South-East has the least with slightly over 10 million voters; the North-East, 11.3 million; North-Central, 13.4 million; and South-South, 12.9 million. Also, male voters constitute 44.4 million, i.e. 52.86 per cent, while female voters account for 39.6 million i.e. 47.14 per cent of voters.”

According to INEC, the student population on the Voter Register is 22, 3 million which translates to 26.57 per cent and is the highest. Concomitantly, youths (18 – 35 years) constitutes 42,938,458 of the register and form the largest voting block of 51.11 per cent. The implication of this figure is that the Nigerian youths will decide the fate of new set of leaders to be voted into power come February 16 and March 2, 2019. When the youth population on the voter register is added to that of the middle age (36 – 50) which is 25,176,144 i.e. 29.97 per cent, Nigerians between ages 18 and 50 constitute 81 per cent of the population. Unfortunately, should the Academic Staff Union of Universities not call off its ongoing strike before the Election Day and call students back to campus, voter turnout on campuses and around places where students live off campus will be very low.

There has been a serious challenge with the collection of the PVCs as many who registered have yet to turn up for the collection of their cards. Some reasons advanced for this development include the fact that the PVCs were not immediately printed after the registration coupled with the fact that collection is being done at the INEC Local Government Offices which are not close to where some of the registrants are domiciled. To ease the pressure, the commission decentralised collection to the Registration Area level from January 16 – 21, 2019. However, since January 22, collection of the PVCs has reverted to INEC Local Government Area offices. As of today, it’s just three days, 72 hours to the final day of the collection which will be suspended by Friday, February 8, 2019. It is thus in the enlightened best interest of those yet to collect their Voter Cards to do so before this Friday.

Why must you collect your PVC? Because that is your only visa to vote. No PVC, no vote! Non-collection shows you’re not a patriotic citizen of this country. Many citizens are prayer warriors and social media activists who like to indulge in armchair criticisms. They are vociferous social commentators. Off social media, they rally at the newspaper stands every day to pontificate. From there, they move to pepper soup joints or football viewing centres to continue their lamentations about the deplorable state of things in the country. Daily, they nurse the ambition of leaving the country for greener pastures. What this set of critics and prayer warriors do not know or choose to ignore is that INEC will not count their verbal exchanges, Facebook tirades, tweets or prayer points. INEC will only count their votes.   It is thus in their enlightened best interest to organise to participate in the electoral process than to continuously agonise.

Quite unfortunately, while some of us are still persuading registered voters to go and collect their PVCs, some unscrupulous arsonists in Abia State on Sunday, February 3, 2019 decided to burn down an INEC office in the state. According to news reports, an estimated 15,000 unclaimed permanent voter cards were burnt at the INEC office at Umu-Ikaa in Isiala Ngwa South Local government Area of Abia State. A similar incident had happened on Sunday, August 2, 2015 when unknown persons burned down the offices of INEC in Obingwa Local Government Area of the same Abia State. This ugly development has more or less disenfranchised owners of these yet-to-be-collected PVCs as it’s practically impossible for to print fresh PVCs for them with few days to elections.

What these undesirable elements have done is totally condemnable and should be thoroughly investigated with the culprits brought to book. INEC should also see this ugly phenomenon as a wake-up call to tighten security around its offices and other critical infrastructure for the election. Desperate politicians will stop at nothing to gain political advantage and discredit the forthcoming elections. INEC should anticipate cyberattack on its Voter Register Database and fortify security around that all-important software. Theft of materials should also be envisaged and prevented. Recently, a popular radio host in Abuja displayed a Smart Card Reader belonging to INEC on his show. The commission should do all within its powers to ensure that unauthorised persons do not have access to its vital equipment and documents. Thus, INEC’s Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security should promptly swing into action to forestall whatever acts of sabotage any group or individuals may be planning either to force postponement of the election or rubbish the Herculean efforts of the commission to deliver credible and peaceful 2019 elections.

In order to enhance the integrity of the National Register of Voters, the commission carried out a display for claims and objections from November 6 – 12, 2018 and nationwide Automatic Fingerprint Identification System de-duplication data analysis in order to remove multiple registrants. Indeed, the INEC chairman in November 2018 said over 300,000 names had been removed from the voters’ list. In December 2018, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Muhammad Babandede, said his staff had succeeded in retrieving 700 Voter Cards from some illegal aliens in the country.  These are all-confidence building measures in the electoral process.

As INEC suspends the collection of the PVCs till after the elections from this Friday, the commission should grant the request of the Coalition of Chairmen of Political Parties for the publication of the number of uncollected PVCs before elections to enable them to know the number of people expected to vote at each Polling Unit. This request is made against the background of possible fears that the uncollected PVCs could be deployed for electoral malpractices. This is a genuine fear given the fact that the INEC boss himself had on January 7 alleged that some desperate politicians were buying up the PVCs.

My message to those who have collected and those who will collect their PVCs before the suspension order will take effect is that they should not sell their PVCs or their vote. They should rather troop out en masse on February 16 and March 2 to vote the leaders of their choice. Remember, change begins with you!