41 Days to Presidential
Poll: Millions in South may not vote
Shambling
and shambolic! Those are the words that best describe what has become of
the distribution and collection of the Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, which
represents a very significant aspect of Nigeria’s electoral process.
Indeed,
these are not the best of times for Professor Attahiru Jega, National Chairman
of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
With just
some 41 days to the most crucial in a series of elections, that is the
presidential election, fresh facts emerging suggest that millions of Nigerians
may be barred from participating in the process.
This is
so because the sine qua non for voting, which is the PVC, is not in the hands
of many Nigerians – without it, they cannot participate in the voting exercise
for the different categories of election.
By the
same token, a number of Nigerians have arrogated to themselves the role of loco
parentis.
What this
means, strangely, is that whereas the Electoral Act and the guidelines provide
that individuals are to collect their PVCs in person, duly signed for after due
identification as the bonafide owners of the PVCs, some District Heads in some
states of the North are being allowed to collect and warehouse PVCs on behalf
of their wards in the district.
That is
not all.
The real
danger for Nigeria’s crucial electoral process is that Jega’s INEC, either
through sheer incompetence, egregious design or just as a victim of the now too
familiar but retrogressive malaise afflicting the nation known as the Nigerian
factor, an exercise that should ordinarily bring Nigeria closer to electoral
civilization, has been made to look like rocket science through the instrumentality
of an unscrupulous engagement.
The data
in possession of Sunday Vanguard shows that the PVCs’ collection, an
exercise which the All Progressives Congress, APC, leadership alleged was being
manipulated by Jega’s INEC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as well as
the Presidency, to achieve an expected end, has been orchestrated in such a way
that, on balance, there are more PVCs in the hands of the electorate in the
North than those in the South – as at today.
Sunday
Vanguard learnt that the PVCs collection exercises across the country, an
engagement that was fraught with inconsistencies, disorganization and
confusion, did not meet the expectations of even the leadership at the
Commission.
Although,
after the public dramatization of the collection of PVCs, prospective voters,
who did not get their PVCs, were expected to proceed to the local government
offices of INEC to collect them, many have come back with tales of
disappointment.
Done in
phases, that aspect of the electoral process demonstrated to a large extent the
level of unpreparedness of INEC for next month’s elections.
Sunday
Vanguard’s usually dependable source at the INEC headquarters disclosed that
one of the major problems, which have given rise to this present state of
stasis, is Jega’s decision to constantly micro-manage the process.
Whereas Jega’s insistence of micro-management may be hinged on his intention to
deliver free and fair elections, the enormity of the workload is such that
cannot permit micro-management but delegation.
And even in instances where Jega
was said to have delegated, the individuals he has put in charge have almost
always had an agenda allegedly hinged on sectional, primordial and prebendal
considerations.
A clear
indication of this played out when one of such individuals in the Commission
came up with a sharing formula for 30,000 additional Polling Units, PUs,
whereby the North got over 21,000 leaving the South with just a little over
8,000.
The
consequence of the needless time, logistics and defence of the lopsided
allocation of the PUs, is what has now come back to haunt Jega’s INEC with the
shambles that the PVCs allocation has become.
Sunday
Vanguard was informed that Jega has been having and is still having sleepless
nights because of the developments surrounding the PVCs collection.
Though
some officials of the Commission continue to put up a bold face, sometimes
lying about the status of the percentage of collection so far, there is a
glaring mismatch with reality.
The
latest data as procured from INEC shows that with the round of PVCs collection
at the PUs across the country, the collection status are as follows:
South
East, 59.22 Collection
South
South, 66.66 Collection
South
West, 43.15 Collection
North
Central, 69.89 Collection
North
East, 81.09 Collection
North
West, 80.18 Collection
From the data (see box below),
the South-South geo-political zone, which has the highest collection compliance
percentage in the entire southern Nigeria with 66.66, does not match the least
in the North, which is the North-Central zone, with 69.9 percent.
In fact,
at one of the interactions leading up to this report revealed that in some
parts of the North, the reason for the very high collection percentage in some
parts of the North “is that some District Heads were allowed to collect PVCs on
behalf of prospective voters”.
“Sunday
Vanguard source said: What we discovered is that some people have compromised
the process.
“In some
parts of the North, some District Heads were discovered to be collecting PVCs
on behalf of the owners. This is in sharp contrast to the strict adherence to
the rules of the game as carried through by those in the South.
“Some of
these instances are being looked into”.
Two months
ago, Sunday Vanguard discovered that in Kano, contrary to the Electoral Act and
guidelines, some people were conducting house to house registration of voters.
As
revealed at that time, it took the intervention of the head of one of the
security agencies, in collaboration with Jega, to stop the illegality.
INEC
continues to wax optimistic about the possibility of ensuring that most voters
get their PVCs, there is already talk in some quarters that the Commission may
be compelled to revert to the use of the temporary cards for some categories of
voters. On a positive note, however, Sunday Vanguard was told that an
international training was already on-going in China for 12 staff of the
Commission regarding the PVCs and Smart Card Reader.
According
to the INEC’s schedule, it ought to have completed a local training programme
for its staff by the eve of last Christmas.
The
figures for eight states were not available as at the time of goping to press
and they are Kaduna, Katsina, Adamawa, Borno, Niger, Osun, Rivers and Ekiti.
It would
be recalled that the Ekiti and Osun elections were conducted using the PVCs.
And without prejudice to the use of the PVC in Osun and Ekiti, the
non-collection of the cards account for the seemingly low turnout.
SOUTH
EAST
STATE
% DISTRIBUTED
ABIA
73.5
ENUGU
45.0
ANAMBRA
48.6
EBONYI
75.0
IMO
54.0
TOTAL %
OF PVC DISTRIBUTED IN SOUTH EAST ==
59.22
SOUTH
SOUTH
AKWA
IBOM
60.0
BAYELSA
79.43
CROSS
RIVER
69.2
DELTA
67.0
EDO
57.7
TOTAL %
OF PVC DISTRIBUTED IN SOUTH SOUTH ==66.666
SOUTH
WEST
ONDO
65.4
OYO
57.67
LAGOS
49.0
OGUN
54.4
TOTAL %
OF PVC DISTRIBUTED IN SOUTH WEST=== 43.1535
NORTH
CENTRAL
BENUE
72.0
KOGI
63.97
KWARA
64.0
PLATEAU
78.9
NASARAWA
70.6
TOTAL %
OF PVC DISTRIBUTED IN NORTH CENTRAL == 69,894
NORTH
EAST
GOMBE
77.0
TARABA
70.0
BAUCHI
96.97
YOBE
80.4
TOTAL %
OF PVC DISTRIBUTED IN NORTH EAST=== 81.0925
NORTH
WEST
KEBBI
60.3
ZAMFARA
70.0
JIGAWA
94.0
SOKOTO
88.9
KANO
87.7
TOTAL % OF
PVC DISTRIBUTED IN NORTH WEST ===
80.18
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