‘INEC mismanaged PVC collection’

The Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, on
Wednesday said that the Independent National
Electoral Commission had mismanaged the
collection of the Permanent Voter Cards, a major
requirement for voters to exercise their civic
responsibilities in the next year’s general
elections.
The collection of the PVC started in the state
last Friday and was to have ended on Monday
while registration of voters was to start on
Tuesday.
He said, “As a result, the governor told members
of the Niger State House of Assembly, during the
presentation of the state’s 2015 budget, that
majority of eligible voters will not be able to
vote during the election.
“As I speak to you, myself, former military
president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and
Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar have not collected
our voter cards.”
Painting a gory picture of developments in the
collection of the cards, Aliyu said only 11 out of
the 25 local government areas got materials,
even with a lot of problems. He insisted that not
more than 12 eligible voters out of 500
received their cards in most of the polling units
where the distribution took place.
He also said that in most of the collection
centres, it was either that the machines brought
for the exercise did not function well or the
officials of INEC abandoned their duty posts.
The governor added that the development was
meant to deliberately disenfranchise some voters
and give undue advantage to a certain
political party.
Aliyu, who is the Chairman of the Northern States
Governors Forum, therefore, advised INEC to
wake up to its responsibility and correct the
anomaly.
Aliyu advised that since everybody might not get
the PVC, INEC should consider allowing all
eligible voters to make use of the temporary
voter cards so that no one would complain of
being disallowed to vote.
The governor also said that all the states’ Houses
of Assembly and the National Assembly should
meet to take a common stand on the situation to
avoid a situation where the 2015 elections
would be declared not free and fair.