Insecurity, inadequate personnel, bribery, other vices characterise collection of the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).
hen Saheed, a resident of Lagos State, south-west Nigeria, visited a permanent voters card collection centre at St Michael’s Nursery and Primary School in the state, he had high hopes of picking up his PVC and returning home. But, some hours later, he was downcast.
“I came on Monday, Tuesday and Friday but couldn’t wait. Now they said they can’t find the printout. So, I went home and up till now, I have been waiting for like four hours.”“I came in less than five minutes and I got it,” Stephen Adeoye told this newspaper.Why voters face hurdlesn INEC official at the Igando PVC Collection Centre in Lagos State, who asked not to be named, told PREMIUM TIMES that some voters battle to pick their PVCs because they do not know their centres.
“It is called an incident. In such situations, we give them a form and they will fill it and we will escalate it to the higher authority,” he said. INEC said 1.6 million PVCs had not been collected in Lagos at the end of December though the situation has improved significantly. During the same period, over 100,000 cards had not been collected in Enugu State.
When Ms Nwaeueze wanted to pick the PVCs of her two siblings, she was asked to pay N1,000 for each of the cards by an official, an illegal sum. She did, albeit reluctantly. “My observation is that the INEC officials here are few and are not adequate to attend to the crowd we have here. Since I have been coming there has been one fight or the other.”t LEA Primary School Lugbe in FCT, a PVC collection centre, some volunteers were seen assisting hundreds of registered voters to queue up and write their names on a paper.Prince Obinna, who was part of the volunteers coordinating the voters, said INEC officials always arrived at the venue later than 9 a.m.
“They didn’t come on time. They came around 11 o’clock yesterday instead of 9 o’clock that was stated in our text message,” he said. Like the cleric, Esther Joseph, a banker, also took permission at her office to pick up her PVC. But the long queues dimmed her hope.Unlike LEA Lugbe Centre, there was no crowd. However, residents still face hurdles in collecting their PVCs at the centre.Another woman, Sarah Abel, said although the process was stressful, she was able to get her PVC after about four hours.
“I have been at this centre since 6 a.m. today and this is my third day without collecting my PVC,” she said. Ekom Ufot, the spokesperson of INEC in Akwa Ibom State, when contacted, promised to inform the management so that necessary actions can be taken.But there was a low turnout across the various wards visited by PREMIUM TIMES.Mrs Ikpo, a staffer of the, had been reluctant to pick the card, despite entreaties by her friends and colleagues to do so. She had dreaded meeting long queues at the centre.
Some registered voters at the centre said it took between 20 minutes and one hour to get their cards, depending on an individual’s ability to quickly present details of his or her registration. “We move from polling unit to polling unit to issue the cards to compensate for people unable to come to a particular place to pick their cards,” Juliet Akpata, one of the INEC officials at the centre, told this newspaper.
At Wakilin Kudu III Collection Centre, PREMIUM TIMES observed that unorganised queues of residents trying to collect their PVCs delayed the exercise. She visited the centre three times but still did not get her PVC, despite being successfully registered. Bukola Adetunji, one of the registered voters in the area, said closing at that hour has been a daily practice for the INEC officials at the wards.
At Isida Market in Ilesa West, bloody clashes by political thugs in the area scare residents away from the collection centres.
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