THE Labour Party (LP) has condemned the attitude of some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the ongoing collection of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) nationwide.
Spokesperson of the LP presidential campaign council, Yunusa Tanko, in a statement released on Wednesday, January 11, accused INEC staff of frustrating most PVC collectors in several parts of the country.
Tanko said reports available to the party indicate that the exercise is moving at a slow pace. According to him, if nothing was done to remedy the situation, many Nigerians will be disenfranchised during the election.
Although INEC has decentralised the exercise to ward levels for seamless collection, the LP campaign spokesperson said many Nigerians who registered for the PVCs “are still finding it difficult to collect their voter’s cards”.
“We have received reports from all the geo-political zones in Nigeria and the messages are all the same – people complaining of the snail pace at which the PVCs are being dispatched to collectors,” he said.
“If you take a close look at the INEC timetable, you have less than 12 days left for collection of PVCs. People go and queue for hours out of about 500 PVC collectors; only 20 or less than 50 people will be given their cards in wards designated for collection.
“What kind of miracle is INEC going to perform that will ensure Nigerians get their PVCs within this short period if there’s no sinister motive underneath?
“The process for collection started on December 12th and is expected to end on Sunday the 22nd of January yet out there across the country many of our members are complaining that the process is cumbersome and INEC staff leisurely stroll in and out of the wards.
“They resume by 9am and close by 3pm and from information reaching us the INEC staff in most cases resume as from 11am daily.
“Today is the 11th of January and by the 22nd of this month the process will collapse. Ehat’s going to be the fate of those who couldn’t get their voter card?”
The party insisted that on no account should Nigerians be denied their inalienable rights to vote in the forthcoming election.
The LP further called on INEC to open up on “these deliberately designed weak operations to Nigerians before people start believing the apex electoral body has a hidden script unknown to us”.
The party also urged security agencies to beef up security around INEC facilities nationwide to check the activities of vandals and arsonists who want to scuttle the elections.
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