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Tag: PVC

  • PVC: 70% eligible voters may Niger to be disenfranchised – APC

    THE All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State yesterday alleged that with distribution of Permanent Voters Cards in only 11 out of the 25 local governments area of the state by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 70 percent of eligible voters in the state may be disenfranchised towards the 2015 general elections.

    The opposition party described the PVC distribution in the state as a charade and an unacceptable exercise.

    The electoral body started the exercise in 11 of the 25 local government areas of the state on Friday after three postponements, due to what they claimed was logistic problem.

    The State Chairman of the party, Engr. Mohammed Jibrin Imam, in Minna on Saturday said the idea of PVC  essentially was to reduce rigging and achieve a credible result in the forth coming elections but complained that none availability of the PVC materials has created suspense and tension in the State.

    Imam accused INEC that the conduct of the exercise in the state “was designed to fail and to disenfranchise 70 percent of eligible voters in the state and pave way for massive rigging by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    “It is therefore unacceptable and we insist that it should be stepped down to give peace a chance in the state.

    “INEC claimed that we have 1.4 million voters in Niger State and the electoral body brought only 600,000 PVCs for the 11 local government areas where the exercise started on Friday, what this meant is that the remaining 14 LGAs with 800,000 voters would be left without PVCs,” he added.

    The party chairman further lamented that the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Emmanuel Onucheyo, gave no cogent reason for the shortfall, except that he has written to the INEC headquarters for ratification.

    Aside the faulty distribution, Imam said the electoral body has declared 627 polling units zero registration units, all in a bid to rig next year’s election.

  • Still on Jega’s PVC troubles

    SIR: I wish to call on the chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to kindly ask his officials to release our voter’s card in Katsina State. Since the start of the distribution of the  Permanent voter’s card (PVC) this month, the exercise has been mired with irregularities most of which stems from the from inability to find the PVC.

    Four years since the the temporary voter’s card was issued, it is sad to note that INEC has not been able to make adequate arrangements for distributing the PVCs across the nation. It will be recalled that over N100 billion naira was said to have been spent by the commission in 2011 – to make all arrangements for a free, fair, credible elections in 2015.

    In Katsina for example, the distribution of the PVC was postponed three times before it finally kicked off. Now that I has started, over 1.5 million PVCs are said to be missing or at least, unaccounted for. When the exercise started, the officials only spent four days. And now that registration for those that lost their own and fresh registration have started, it has only been carried out in four places, and all the places have long queues of people aggressively waiting to be registered.

    INEC and other relevant stakeholders in the PVC distribution process should get their acts together to solve this problem. Already people are insinuating that the INEC is planning to rig elections in 2015, by deliberately causing difficulties in the exercise and limiting participation.

    I call on Professor Attahiru Jega to please find a way to quickly resolve the problem; I also call on Nigerians to be patient and law abiding.

     

    • Comrade Abdulbaqi Jari Katsina, Katsina

  • Residents praised over PVC

    Residents praised over PVC

    A community leader at Ota in the Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State, Femi Ajayi, has praised residents for trooping out to collect the Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs), despite the inherent challenges.

    Ajayi, who was also once a leader of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in the state, made this remark in Ota while addressing youths in the community who thronged his office to lament their inability to collect the PVCs during the period earmarked for the exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    He said their grievance showed that they were ready  to play their civic roles in the forthcoming 2015 elections.

    Ajayi, who condemned INEC for a shoddy job, pledged that nobody of voting age would be denied of his or her right to vote.

    The community leader, who was full of praises to the people for appreciating the importance of the exercise, said the people had expressed the fact that that they were adequately prepared to elect their choice representatives in the coming elections.

  • Alimoso residents protest shoddy PVC distribution

    Alimoso residents protest shoddy PVC distribution

    The collection of Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) and registration of voters is over in Lagos but most residents are still complaining of the shoddy performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    Residents of Alimoso Local Government Area in Lagos have been complaining about what they described as an attempt by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disenfranchise them during next year’s general elections. Although there has been complaints from many local government areas in the state over the performance of INEC, the loudest protest appear to be coming from Alimoso, which is the local government with the largest number of registered voters in the state, if not the country.

    It has been one complain or the other in many communities in the local government, especially during the registration of new voters. In communities like Ijegun and Abaaranje, the general conclusion is that there is a deliberate attempt by INEC to disenfranchise the majority of the people.

    There were long queues at the two communities daily, as people made efforts to ensure that their names get into the register. According to a community leader in the area, Alhaji Adeola Alase, “we have mobilised our people and they have complied, but it seems that INEC is not ready for this exercise or that it is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise us. For the past three days, we have been using generating sets to supply power directly to the three computers on ground because their batteries are not working. Imagine INEC’s computers with no batteries, it is unbelievable.”

    An elderly woman, Mrs. Abigail Eleshin, who defied old age to attempt to register for the exercise, was left frustrated after waiting for four hours without even getting near the registration area. She had to go back home at the end of the day. “I can’t kill myself because I want to register, the organisers (INEC) seem not to be ready,” she lamented.

    The story is the same in other communities within the local government like Ilo, a border community with Ogun State; Ikola, Meiran, Ayobo, Ipaja, Ishefun, Camp David, Egbeda, Akowonjo, Shasha and Egbe.

    For instance, a resident of Ikola, Isaiah Oluwole, said there is need for the state government to take up the matter officially with INEC. His words: “I suspect a deliberate attempt to disenfrachise us, especially in Alimoso Local Government. INEC came to this local government with obsolete computers and equipment. I personally did my own investigation as I visited some of the registration centres as a community leader.

    “Most of the computers are not working. In some cases, residents have to obtain generating sets to power computers directly because some these computers don’t have batteries.

    “In all registration centres I visited, there was no security. For me, INEC has a hidden agenda.”

  • PVC: INEC planning to decimate Lagos’ voting population, says Fashola

    PVC: INEC planning to decimate Lagos’ voting population, says Fashola

    DESPITE its segregation of the Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC) distribution in Lagos, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) again failed to distribute the cards in some of the remaining nine local governments in the state.

    To redress the situation, the electoral body has directed that voters in some of the affected wards, including that of the State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, to register afresh.

    The distribution of PVC, which was first scheduled for between November 7 and 9 in the state was carried out in only 11 of the 20 Local Government Areas, while the exercise was scheduled from November 28 to 30 in the remaining nine local governments.

    However, amidst reports ranging from late commencement of the exercise in some local government areas, to outright omission of names on the lists in various wards, the Commission pasted notices in some wards, including the governor’s Ward G3 Unit E002 located at the State Junior Grammar School, Itolo Street, Surulere, while directing the voters to come for fresh registration scheduled to start on December 3.

    The notice pasted on the gate of school reads: “We regret to inform you that those who registered in this polling unit ……do not have Permanent Voters’ Card. Please come back between 3rd and 8th December 2014 for fresh registration”. It was signed INEC, Lagos.

    Reacting to the development after visiting the unit, Fashola expressed disappointment that INEC had chosen a path that could lead to the collapse of the nation’s fledgling democracy, adding that the act was a deliberate attempt to decimate the voting population in the state.

    Fielding questions from newsmen at the Lagos House Marina, the governor described the development as shameful, expressing regrets that when INEC scheduled the exercise for between the 7th and the 9th of November, the state government spent resources to mobilise the people only for the Commission failing to discharge its responsibility.

    “They said the exercise would take place between the 7th and the 9th of November; we mobilised, we spent money. I addressed the state at least not less than twice, we held stakeholders’ meeting just to get people ready. We put all the resources out there only for INEC to change the game,” he lamented.

    He added, “They broke it into two; we tried to understand and accept that they would do 11 and later come to do the remaining nine. Now the nine are not ready, the 11 have been handled in a very unsatisfactory way from the comments that I have received. So, if the governor of the state who was elected cannot even vote, it says a lot about what INEC has really done here.”

    Insisting that voters in the state would participate in the elections “whether Jega likes it or not”, the governor declared, “We will compel them to do their duty, they owe us that much. Just look at the time of Nigerians that have been wasted over the years. That is a lot of productive man-hours lost. That is a lot of income for this nation lost trying to do something as simple as registering ourselves to vote.”

    While appealing to Lagosians to continue to stay on the side of the law, the governor also enjoined them not to be frustrated, adding that the clear inferences to be drawn from INEC’s latest act is that it wants to disenfranchise as many voters as it possibly can in the state.

    Warning the commission to come out clean in its activities towards Lagos State, Fashola declared: “We have facts and I will begin to reveal them. We also have information because we are tracking these things, where our voters’ cards are moving to, and the numbers that are moving across the State. So, INEC had better come clean because we are not going to accept this lying low.”

  • PVC: Kano govt threatens legal action

    The Kano State government may head to court to challenge alleged inconsistencies in the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) Deputy Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said yesterday.

    Alhaji Ganduje asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to urgently address the inconsistencies otherwise the state government will approach the court for redress.

    He told reporters in Kano that the issue of voters registration deserves more attention than it is currently being accorded by those charged with the responsibility. He insisted that under no circumstance should anyone be disenfranchised.

    He declared that should INEC fail to do the correct thing by extending the registration by seven days to accommodate those who have been left out, the state government will go to court. ”I do not want to believe that this is sabotage. I am not part of the people that believe that it is a sabotage, but to me, it’s an indication of incapacity on the part of INEC and its staff. We don’t want people to be disenfranchised,” he said.

    “It will not be good for democracy and the forthcoming elections, if adequate measures are not taken to correct the mistakes of INEC. Most of the computers used for the registration are obsolete. The batteries run down quickly and there is no alternative to power them. Our people are on the queue for several hours but could not be registered because of INEC’s inadequacies.

    “In some Local Governments, where you have 11 centres, you only find out that only three centres are operating and in those centres, the INEC ad-hoc staff report to work very late and close early. ”We may be forced to take appropriate legal action against INEC if all these anomalies are not corrected as INEC recruited computer illiterates as ad-hoc staff. Ganduje said an extension would be an opportunity for everyone to be registered, adding that, the state government has successfully mobilised the electorate in the state to understand that they have a role to play in making the nascent democratic system in the country feasible.

    The deputy governor said that the centres designated for the exercise are inadequate, creating the impression that the hopes of the electorate were completely dashed.

  • Angry PVC seekers take to the streets in Imo

    Angry PVC seekers take to the streets in Imo

    Thousands of angry voters who could not collect their Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC) in Imo State, yesterday, stormed the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to protest what they called a deliberate attempt by the electoral body to disenfranchise the people.

    The protest, which resulted in heavy traffic gridlock along the busy Port Harcourt -Owerri road and other parts of the capital city, crippled activities at the INEC secretariat, as the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Selina Oko, and other staff of the commission were held hostage by the protesters who barricaded the main entrance to the office and prevented vehicles from going in or leaving the premises.

    Victor Okonkwo, who spoke with newsmen, alleged that INEC was working with some politicians to hijack the exercise, stating that the commission has proved that it cannot be trusted to conduct a free and fair election in the state.

    Expressing his doubts over the 2015 general elections in the state, Okonkwo described the withholding of the PVC by INEC as ‘electronic’ rigging, which he said was one of the newly-introduced measures to undermine the conduct of the election in the state. “We demand the immediate release of our PVC. Let this not be an electronic rigging, INEC, our PVC is our right, let us be real Nigerians.

    INEC has failed. “There won’t be election in the state until INEC does the right thing. INEC should not disenfranchise Imo people. We say no to this plot.” However, speaking during a radio broadcast, the REC appealed to the people who were yet to get their PVC to remain calm, saying efforts were already on to get it distributed.

  • PVC: aggrieved voters barricade INEC office in Imo

    PVC: aggrieved voters barricade INEC office in Imo

    …REC, others held hostage

    Thousands of angry voters who could not collect the Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC) in Imo State, Friday, overrun the Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in protest of what they called deliberate attempt by the electoral body to disenfranchise the people.

    The protest which resulted in heavy gridlock along the busy Port Harcourt -Owerri road and other parts of the capital city, crippled activities at the INEC Secretariat as the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Selina Oko and other staff of the Commission were held hostage by the protesters who locked up the entrance gate and prevented vehicles from going in or leaving the premises.

    Addressing Newsmen, Victor Okonkwo, alleged that INEC in collusion with some politicians, had hijacked the PVC meant for the people, stating that the Commission has proved that it cannot be trusted to conduct a free and fair election in the state.

    Expressing his doubts over the 2015 general elections in the state, Okonkwo described the withholding of the PVC by INEC as ‘electronic’ rigging, which he said was one of the newly introduced measures to undermine the conduct of the election in the state.

    According to him, “we demand the immediate release of our PVC. Let this not be an electronic rigging, INEC, our PVC is our right, let us be real Nigerians, why hijack some booths, INEC has failed. About 20 million PVC is missing in the state”.

    He threatened further that, “there won’t be election in the state until INEC does the right thing. INEC should not disenfranchise Imo people, we say no to this plot.”

    However in her response via a radio broadcast, the REC appealed to the people who were yet to get their PVC to remain calm as efforts were already on top gear to get it distributed.

    Meanwhile, addressing the protesters at the Government House, the Commandant General of the Rochas Campaign Organization and Commissioner for Housing and Urban Development, Barr Iheukwumere Araribe, assured that the obvious malpractices will be urgently addressed.

    He noted that the reported malfunctioning of the machines could be one of the ploys by INEC to disenfranchise the people.

  • Boko Haram: Over 100,000 voters may be disenfranchised

    Boko Haram: Over 100,000 voters may be disenfranchised

    No fewer than 100,000 eligible voters are yet to col-lect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) in Gujba and Gulani local  government areas of Yobe State.

    The distribution of cards has been suspended, following the invasion of the two councils by members of the Boko Haram sect.

    The Resident  Electoral Commissioner, Sadiq Abubakar, told reporters in Damaturu, the state capital, said the exercise was suspended because of insecurity.

    He said INEC officials will resume the distribution, when the security situation improves.

    Governor Ibrahim Gaidam however, asured that registered voters will get their cards. He spoke in Burkarti, Yunusari Local Government, after collecting his card.

    The governor said that eligible voters would not be disenfranchised, assuring that security measures would be put in place to ensure safety of life and property.

    He also promised that displaced people would not be excluded in the distribution.

    However, despite the governors’ assurance, there is no immediate solution. Boko Haram is still on the prowl. The two councils have not had peace. There are fears that the election may not take place there next year.

    Abubakar said his men’s life are exposed to danger. He added: “Until the security improves, I cannot direct my staff to go to that Boko Haram enclave in the name of distributing PVCs.

    “I am waiting for clearance from security agencies and I have not gotten any signal in that respect. Let me tell you that your concern is just like mine and the people of Gujba and Gulani too. If it is possible, we want this thing done. But, there is no short-cut to this issue at the moment.”

    The REC was not categorical on whether there will be an alternative plan for the distribution of the cards.

    A source disclosed that the commission is planning a secret distribution of the PVCs to the voters in Damaturu through some politicians from the area.

    The source said: “Since the majority of the people that ran out of Gujba  and Gulani are staying in Damaturu, the commission is looking at the possibility of holding a meeting with politicians from the areas on possible ways of distributing the PVCs to voters, if possible, even secretly.”

  • INEC extends distribution of PVCs in Ogun

    Following the state-wide hitches and irregularities during the distribution of Permanent Voters Cards ( PVC) to registered voters in Ogun State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday extended the exercise by one day.

    Governor Ibikunle Amosun had on Saturday stormed the INEC state Headquarters where he complained over the distribution of the PVCs in the state.

    Amosun also called the INEC) to cancel the marred exercise in the state and start afresh as the hitches and irregularities got worse the second day.

    He urged the INEC to “redeem its image,” as the shoddy preparations and irregularities characterising the distribution of the PVCs in the state is “reprehensible, disappointing, terrible and unacceptable.”

    The INEC Southwest Regional officer (Ogun, Oyo and Ekiti) Prof. Lai Olorode, who said he does not have the power to start a fresh distribution as only the INEC Headquarters in Abuja could give such instruction when the governor’s complain is routed officially communicated to Abuja.

    But on Sunday, in what appears to be electoral body heeding the Governor’s call, it announced that the deadline for distribution of the PVCs would now be Monday.

    In a statement by the state Resident Electoral Commission (REC), Sam Olumekun, and captioned, “INEC/OG/345/VOL.II,” it explained that the extention granted Ogun state was sequel to a plethora of hitches witnessed by both the commission as wellas the citizens during the first two days of the exercise which started last Friday.

    The INEC also appeal led to residents to be calm and not panic as every registered voter would get his or her card.