THE general impression amongst the reading public is that columnists tend to be social critics who appear to always harp on the ills of society. That is not correct though, and if one were to read any column religiously, one would find the columnist writing on the good, the bad and the ugly, in society.
Today, the Princess Files is examining the performance of the electoral umpire here and straight up, the electoral commission is getting a pass mark on this space.
The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC is one strange outfit that is primed for hard knocks! Voters, Party Agents, Losers, even Winners knock the INEC- the APC cried foul up to and AFTER the 2015 presidential elections which the APC even won!
Reasons for the condemnation vary; however, the focus here is on voter awareness and mobilization, as well as the drive for PVC (Permanent Voters Card) collection as carried out by the electoral commission. To underscore the good job done by INEC, one needs only to do this simple test: ask the very next person you see if he or she has collected his/her PVC. The answer will either be a Yes or a No- it will NOT be a throw-back question of: What is a PVC?
So the same INEC that brought the concept to our awareness has also, I would say, successfully stamped it into our consciousness.
What INEC calls the CVR which is the Continuous Voters Registration commenced on April 27, 2017 and was billed to be suspended on August 15th 2018; now extended to August 31st. On that exercise, I give INEC an A score for awareness created. For instance, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner REC for Cross River State, Dr. Frankland Briyai made it known recently that in the first six months of the year, registration of eligible voters in Cross River more than doubled the number recorded from the onset of the exercise up till about the last quarter of 2017. And unlike in the past where it seemed it was the sole responsibility of INEC to drive the mobilization for registration of eligible voters and call for PVC collection, now every stakeholder is getting involved. Women are telling women’s groups to go get registered, youth groups are engaging, and the electronic media is putting the message out free and oftentimes independently or in collaboration with INEC, to ensure mass mobilization (I am doing it!).
Collection of PVCS has been a little tricky, and here, INEC could have taken a few more practical steps towards this completion.
I don’t understand why the cards are not made available upon registration such that the registration exercise is a one-day process, but whatever really is, in Nigeria?
Be that as it may, INEC could have borrowed a leaf from other similar institutions like NIN, the body responsible for issuing National Identity Cards. In their case they used to send text messages to people who had registered whenever their cards were ready. Now what they give you is a slip of paper with a serial number and a date of collection, and on presentation of this, the cards are given. For INEC, upon registration (a tortuous experience), the prospective voter would naturally ask when the PVC would be ready for collection.
The immediate, first answer from the attendant INEC official is: I Don’t Know. When pressed for even an idea of the time, he would say something like-Come Back In October (this would be the response to those who might have registered around August). However, the tone, as well as the expression on the face of the person saying this would make one wonder-
did the guy mean October This Year or October 2022!!
Sadly, usually, from any particular October 2nd (October 1st being a public holiday) till December 31st such a person would be oscillating between his own office and the INEC office until in utter frustration, he or she would simply give up.
And then you would hear INEC officials shouting all over the place that hundreds of thousands of voters cards had been ready and awaiting collection and people were not coming forward-HABA!
INEC could be a lot more proactive on that front in order for work on the 2019 Election Project Plan (called EPP by INEC) to really be meaningful.
I do not know the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, but I see a number of recognizable faces who are known for their uprightness. One is Mohammed Haruna, a literary icon, publisher and even a former columnist with The Nation (his column was a must – read in the Nation midweek, before he rested it to concentrate on his INEC job.
One other INEC official has distinguished himself by his commitment to the proper conduct of elections for a free and fair outcome. That is Mr. Mike Igini, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Akwa Ibom State. A clear Six Months ahead of the 2019 general election, Igini has made a stunning, epochal yet inspiring declaration that under his watch as the REC of the INEC, no forces within or outside the state would influence or determine the process or outcome of the 2019 general election. He said only the votes of the people would count.
At a stakeholders’ engagement meeting earlier this month Mike Igini had said and I quote, “no might or power within or outside the state under my watch as the commissioner of elections in the state, would be allowed to stir the process to aid any group unduly, as victory at the polls can only come from the votes cast by voters”.
Hear, Hear!
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