INEC’s response to queries from citizens who could not find their names and pictures but had with them their temporary cards is nothing more than another indulgence in the culture of excuses.
The latest controversy on our political landscape is the issue of what the Independent National Electoral Commission calls the Permanent Voter Card. Since INEC’s shoddy work in releasing PVCs to citizens, the country’s political temperature has been raised noticeably. Opposition parties, APC in particular, have justifiably cried foul while image makers for the ruling party at the centre have made frantic efforts to dampen what appears to be a nation-wide opposition to impending disenfranchisement of citizens. INEC itself appears to be less forthcoming on how to resolve the crisis caused by its inefficiency.
All over the world, the most important ritual of democracy is election. It may come every four years in some countries and every five years in others, but come it must in the character of rituals. The famous claim in democracies that sovereignty belongs to the people is most concretised in electoral democracy: the inalienable right of citizens to choose at constitutionally specified intervals, the persons they want to govern them in the political territory to which they belong as bona fide citizens. Citizens’ right to choose those who rule their country becomes compromised when they are deprived of their right to vote. The right to vote is, first and foremost, represented by unfettered to access to the voter card without which no citizen can cast his/her vote during elections.
It is a common belief in democracies all over the world that any attempt-intentional or unintentional-that makes citizens feel that their right to choose their leaders has been abridged constitutes an attempt to deny citizens their claim to sovereignty. Such deprivation is perceived as deliberate effort to rob of their citizenship. Denying citizens access to voter cards is a clear case of annulment of citizens’ political and civil rights in a democratic country. Where such happens, concerned citizens have a right to scream, protest, and even go to court. Failure to protest and demonstrate against abridgement of such rights is tantamount on the part of citizens to knowingly committing political suicide.
However, in the present circumstance of millions of citizens not being able to collect their voter cards from INEC officials, the onus of rectification rests solely on INEC, if the commission is not to be labelled as election rigger. Members of the ruling party and spokespersons for the president should have no role or voice in the matter of INEC’s failure to make voter cards available to citizens without fetters. For the ruling political party to criticise other parties for protesting against INEC’s failure to provide voter cards to citizens as required by law, such ruling party spokespersons give the impression that it aids and abets (or at least condones) the commission in its failure to perform its constitutional function properly.
As a citizen who registered to vote as required by the country’s electoral law, my experience in M.K.O Abiola Gardens during last week’s release of voter cards convinced me that INEC was not prepared to release voter cards to citizens without fetters. The Commission was absent on the first day it was billed to release cards, a day set aside as work-free to enable citizens perform their constitutional duty with ease. On the second day when INEC’s agents came, the performance of the agents was abysmally low. The agents were rude to citizens, shouting at them and ordering them around. Citizens who came there with their temporary voter cards (with their pictures on them) were ordered to first go and search for their names among hundreds of names and pictures pasted on the walls.
Furthermore, when citizens came back to tell the agents that most of the papers had fallen off, they were told rudely to put the papers back on the wall themselves, if they were truly interested in obtaining their PVCs. When citizens asked for assistance and glue to re-mount the papers on the walls, they were told to bend down and search for their pictures among sheaves of papers on the ground, if they were not ready to put the papers back on the wall. Those who did not see their pictures on the walls or on the ground were told caustically to wait for future announcements in the media about when they should come for re-registration. Those lucky enough to find their names, like me, were made to line up in the sun while the agents groped for cards in trays on and below the table. In the three hours I was there, more people were unable to find their names on the wall than those lucky enough to find theirs.
The experience of those who were able to find their names is enough to accuse INEC of subtle or covert attempt to rob or deny citizens of their right to vote in the 2015 election. Rights in democracies are not supposed to be given grudgingly. Instead of providing a facile access to the cards for citizens on the day I went to collect my PVC, the agency frustrated citizens and gave the impression that the agents preferred to annoy citizens to quit without receiving their cards. One did not on that day need to be a critical citizen to suspect that INEC agents were more interested in holding on to the permanent voter cards than in giving them to their rightful owners. Otherwise, the culture of service (as low as it is in our country in relation to others) is generally higher than what I observed that day.
INEC’s response to queries from citizens who could not find their names and pictures but had with them their temporary cards is nothing more than another indulgence in the culture of excuses. “Losing over one million names on the computer” is reminiscent of NEPA’s excuse of power outage coming from too much water during the rainy season and too little water during the dry season. In other countries where governments and their agencies have been made (or are in the habit of) respecting citizens, there would have been announcements of the loss of one million names to the computer well ahead, to prepare citizens for the frustration that might arise at the point of collecting voter cards. In addition, a complaint and rectification table would have been created to solve problems of those who did not find their names on the same day and at the same venue. Scheduling another time to do this appears designed to make the process cumbersome and frustrating to citizens, with the ultimate goal or hope discouraging them from fulfilling their civic duties.
There are some issues that INEC needs to clarify for citizens. When did the agency realise that it had lost over one million names? What type of computer and software does the agency use that has no in-built device to prevent such huge loss? Were handlers of such computers properly trained or were they just irresponsible? Why has the agency not chosen to input the names that were lost from the master records in their headquarters long before the date to release cards to citizens? Why did INEC not announce and publicise all the names purportedly lost well ahead of the time for release of PVCs? Why did INEC wait till a time so close to the election to make permanent voter cards available to citizens? What is to be gained or lost if citizens with their temporary cards are allowed to use them to vote in 2015, instead of insisting that they must come back to do another registration, realising that the registration they did about four years ago had miscarried under the watch of INEC? In a country where all other important documents: passport and driver’s licence are not permanent, why is the voter card being made permanent and not renewable like other civic documents, as it is done in many other democracies? How can INEC guarantee that no citizen with a copy of his/her temporary card will be prevented from exercising the right to vote three months from now, should they still be unable to obtain INEC’s permanent voter cards?
Political party leaders who went to complain and protest on behalf of citizens about the injustice and danger in the shoddiness of INEC with respect to providing all duly registered citizens with their voter cards have shown good leadership. There is nothing partisan about insisting that citizens, regardless of their party affiliation, must be given the opportunity at elections to indicate their choice. There is everything wrong with an agency charged with protecting such right to act– knowingly or unknowingly – as an agent to deprive citizens of their right to vote. Political party leaders also need to encourage and support citizens to protect their right to vote, as such protection is better handled by the aggrieved, through litigation-individual or class action.
