PROTEST AGAINST INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION (INEC)
GREETINGS ALL
WE HAVE COME TODAY TUESDAY 15TH DAY OF MARCH 2022 TO EXPRESS OUR DISENCHANTMENT WITH INEC FOR ITS FAILURE TO EFFECTIVELY PERFORM ITS FUNCTIONS TO THE VOTERS OF LAGOS STATE.INEC'S NONE CHALLANT RESPONSE TO OUR INQUIRIES AND OUR OFFER TO WORK WITH INEC AS A NONE GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY HAS LEFT US CONVINCED THAT INEC IS GUILTY OF MISINFORMATION, MISDIRECTION, MISEDUCATION AND A COVER UP.
CONSIDER OUR REASONS FOR BRINGING THESE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST INEC:
(1) DURING THE 2019 ELECTION CYCLE INEC HAD 1.3 MILLION UNCOLLECTED PVC'S IN LAGOS STATE ALONE, YET WHEN OUR ORGANIZATION RESET LAGOS PDP OFFERED TO HELP DISTRIBUTE PVC'S LEADING TO THE 2023 ELECTION, INEC IGNORED OUR OFFER.
(2) Voter Turnout was extremely low in the 2019 General Election. The figure in Lagos State was an embarrassing 18.60%(Things were not much better across the country: Abia: 17.62%, Anambra : 26.94%, Enugu:22.94%, Akwa Ibom :29.55%., Cross River : 29.77%, Rivers : 22.05% ,Nasarawa :39.78% ,Kano : 39.52% , Kogi: 35.11% ,Ogun : 28.11% , Ondo : 35. 01%, Oyo: 33.63% Zamfara: 34.67%)
And yet when we offered to help INEC reduce voter apathy in Lagos through a sensitization campaign, INEC refused the offer.
(3) INEC'S Continuous PVC Application Exercise is a SHAM, because while INEC encourages People to apply it does not treat their application seriously. By its own admission , ( Copyright Punch 13th Jan 2022) while over 4 million Nigerians applied for new PVC'S in 2021, (2.4 on line and 2.429 in person ), INEC has been able to print only about 40,000 (forty thousand) Less than 1% production.
(4) Even the application to update information such as change of address, change of status, and request to change Temporary Voters Card to PVC is treated with levity by INEC.
My own personal experience with INEC has been truly perplexing: The Temporary Voters Card which I was issued in 2012 was good enough for voting in the 2015 Election. In 2019 however, INEC rejected this card, and has failed to issue me a Permanent Voters Card as replacement since then despite several visits to INEC Head Office at Birell Road, Yaba and its satellite office inside Local Government Compound at Alagomeji, Lagos. At my sixth visit on 20th January 2022, I was advised to try again in the month of June.
It will now be three years trying to get INEC to upgrade a Temporary Voters Card to a Permanent Voters Card (PVC)! Thousands of other Lagosians are experiencing a similar nightmare!
RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS TO INEC'S INEPTITUDE
(1) Decentralize Production of PVC'S.
If states are enabled to produce their own PVC'S instead of depending on Production from only Abuja, the number of PVC'S available will increase exponentially. Also automate issuance of PVCs as ATM cards are produced today by banks
(2) Develop a delivery system with assistance of Non-Governmental Agencies, see RLP Letter to Professor Mahmood Yakubu dated 23rd November 2021, received in Abuja 26th November 2021) ( not Political Parties) to get people's PVC'S to them.
(3) Publish names of available PVC'S ready for collection, and UNCOLLECTED PVC'S in newspapers, or call people on the phone for pickup.
(4) Increase the number of PVC collection points to include banks and NIN Offices.
(5) Allow holders of Temporary Voters Cards to use their cards to vote.
(6) INEC must increase security at voting points, and treat election vandalism as a criminal offence.
Currently, only the individual culprit is charged with a bailable offence. Election vandalism should be regarded as grand larceny, and the culprit should be charged along with his political party.
(7) The INEC National Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu should be invited for questioning by the National Assembly to explain why he has failed so woefully. He must be sanctioned.
(8) Election day should be increased to at least 3 days. This will allow more people time to vote. It would ease Congestion and long queues at polling stations. This would make voting less of an ordeal for voters.
If a person has not received his PVC six months before an election, that person is in fact unlikely to be able to vote on Election Day, because INEC will by that time be inundated with preparations for Election Day operations.
In conclusion, we call on INEC to produce PVC for every single registered voter who has applied for a PERMANENT VOTERS CARD (PVC) AND DELIVER THE CARD TO THEM AT LEAST SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE 2023 ELECTION; THAT IS BEFORE NOVEMBER 2022.
FAILURE TO DO THIS IS SERIOUS DERELICTION OF DUTY. AS THINGS STAND INEC IS ALREADY GUILTY OF DISENFRANCHISING MILLIONS OF NIGERIANS. IT HAS PREVENTED THEM FROM EXERCISING THEIR DEMOCRATIC RIGHT TO VOTE. IF THIS UGLY TREND IS NOT REVERSED IN THE NEXT SIX MONTHS, THEN WE RECOMMEND THAT THE INEC CHAIRMAN, PROFESSOR MAHMOOD YAKUBU BE RELIEVED OF HIS DUTIES!
Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse, Public Affairs Analyst, Convener RESET LAGOS PDP.
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