Avoiding The Brewing Storm Over PVCs

Many Nigerians received with mixed feelings the news about the postponement of the general elections by six weeks. Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof Attahiru Jega, made the announcement  two weeks ago. While some perceived the postponement as part of a ploy to rig the elections, many who had not collected their Permanent Voter’s Cards, PVCs, saw it as an opportunity to do so.

As a fallout from the postponement, recent figures and statistics released by INEC show that there has been a significant increase in the number of voters who have eventually succeeded in collecting their PVCs after several visits to the collection centres. According to INEC, over 76.8 percent of the total registered number of voters have so far collected their PVCs across the country.

Impressive as these figures appear, there are clear indications that trouble may still be brewing in various parts of the country as thousands of willing and duly registered voters are still not able to find their voter’s cards. In Ogun State, for instance, over 50 percent of registered voters have still not been able to find their PVCs. Some of the residents have taken to the streets to protest their imminent disenfranchisement despite several assurances by INEC officials in the state to address the problem. The protesting residents  vowed to ensure that elections would not take place in their localities  if they don’t find their PVCs before the new election date.

There is also poor PVC distribution in Lagos, Edo, Rivers, Kaduna and several other states where eligible voters have complained about not finding their PVCs after visiting more than five collection centres. Ironically, millions of unclaimed PVCs are still lying at the various collection centres across the country. Findings revealed that many of these uncollected PVCs actually belong to voters in other parts of the country different from where they were sent to. This is rather unfortunate and a clear indication that many voters will still be disenfranchised for no fault of theirs.

This is a clear case of poor logistic planning by INEC. One wonders why PVCs meant for a particular area of a state would be sent to another state entirely. Unless something is done urgently to correct this anomaly, these unfortunate voters may never find their PVCs. The danger of not attending to this obvious problem that may pose credibility challenges during the elections and INEC is enormous. One, many of these angry voters may disrupt the elections or contest the outcome in a court of law. Voters who are disenfranchised from exercising their rights to vote may simply proceed to court to insist on that right.

With hundreds of thousand of voters already facing this dilemma, any law suit they institute against INEC may portend danger for the elections as the outcome of the elections could end in stalemate or inconclusive or even trigger violence with cataclysmic consequences for the entire nation.

This is an avoidable situation and we urge INEC to address this problem before the deadline for collection of PVCs across the country. A conscious effort should be made by the commission to identify PVCs wrongly sent to certain parts of the country and relocate them to the right places.