THE Resident Electoral Commissioner in Lagos State, Olusegun Agbaje, has described as worrisome the low rate of Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) collection in Lagos State.
Agbaje, who stated this during the Constituencies Stakeholders’ Meeting, 2022 in Lagos said only 6,382 PVCs out of the 34,242 received from the commission’s headquarters for the first and second quarters’ Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) had been collected by their owners. This, he said, represented just 18.6 per cent.
The meeting was part of the ongoing engagement with critical stakeholders with a view to sensitising them on the imperatives of the PVCs ahead of the 2023 general election. He also added that a total of 1,091,157 of the old PVCs were still uncollected by their owners. He, therefore, urged stakeholders to continue to assist the commission in mobilising eligible citizens residing in Lagos State that were yet to collect theirs to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the ongoing collection at the INEC offices where they registered to collect their PVCs. He added that anyone without it cannot vote during any election. “No PVC, no voting,” he said.
Agbaje said the success of any election depended largely on how relevant stakeholders played their various roles. He, therefore, urged everyone to strive towards ensuring that their contributions were effective, positive and purposeful for the attainment of sustainable and enduring democratic culture in the country.
The Resident Commissioner, who was represented by the Principal Programme Officer, Mustapha Sulaimon said prior to the expansion of voter access to polling units across the federation by the commission in June last year, Lagos State had 8,464 polling units, but this was increased to 13,325 after the exercise as a result of the conversion of 4,861 voting points to polling units located closer to some voters who used to trek long distances to cast their votes during elections in the past.
Stakeholders were urged to assist the commission in educating the voters to take advantage and make use of the opportunity provided by the new polling units by letting them know they need to utilise the new polling units by transferring their voting location to the ones nearest to them in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise at the state office in Yaba or any of the commission’s offices in the 20 local government areas as well as the mobile CVR centres in different registration areas/wards across the state.
He said: “The commission began the first quarter of 2021 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise through her online platforms in June, as well as the physical registration otherwise known as in-person registration in July, the same year in all states and local government areas offices of the commission across the country.
“In Lagos State, 640,774 eligible voters had done the online registration before it ended on May 30, but as of June 27, only 371,760 had completed their registration and the commission is making efforts to ensure that all eligible citizens were captured before the end of the CVR.”
Agbaje advised the stakeholders to properly educate and mobilise the voters in line with the Electoral Act 2022 and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended). This, he said, was a significant area where the commission needed the positive input of all stakeholders to complement her efforts to improve the level of awareness of the citizens in the democratic process.
Agbaje also added that this would increase the PVC collection rate and eliminate voter apathy that had characterised past elections in the state where, according to him, only 1,156,590 out of 6,570,291 registered voters (17.6 per cent) participated in the 2019 general election in Lagos State.
Also, only 104, 405 out of 1,343, 448 registered voters (7.8 per cent) participated in the 2020 Lagos East senatorial district bye-election. He said: “On this note, let me re-emphasise that INEC will continue to focus on its mandate guided by its mission and vision and also utilising the tremendous goodwill and support of all stakeholders to address identified challenges.”
He enjoined all stakeholders to play strictly by the rules as part of the collective efforts toward ensuring the successful conduct of next year’s general election. He added: “The importance of interacting with very important stakeholders such as you at this time when political activities are on the front burner cannot be over-emphasised.
“It is therefore expected that you will be more informed to play your roles in line with the relevant laws and international good practices at the end of this meeting,” Agbaje stated, adding that the INEC is working hard to ensure the successful conduct of next year’s general election.”
He said the conversion of voting points to polling units, the ongoing CVR exercise, ongoing collection of PVCs, releasing of the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election among others, were some of the events already put in place for the smooth conduct of the elections.
He also said the Commission had taken a bold step in her ongoing efforts to inject technological impetus into the electoral system and had further strengthened the voting process for the conduct of very free, fair, credible and acceptable elections by introducing the Bi-modal Voter Authentication System (BVAS) which, according to him, enables human recognition through biometric verification mechanism, using fingerprint and facial recognition to replace the Smart Card Readers which only enables human recognition using fingerprint.
The device, he added, was equipped to scan the result of the poll at the Polling Unit on form EC8A and send it to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in real-time to further enhance the transparency of elections.
The Vice-Chairman, Ejigbo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Ayodele Ayodeji Sunday said party members have to be loyal and faithful by ensuring that we all have our PVCs. He, therefore, encouraged those who are yet to get theirs to do so.
The member representing Oshodi/Isolo State Constituency 11 in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Jude Chukwuemeka Idimogu, who described Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu as a leader that would never fail, encouraged his constituents to ensure they all have their PVCs so as to vote the ruling party to make him emerge as next president of Nigeria in next year’s general election.
“Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu is number one. It’s for us to support him, it’s not by talking, go and get your PVCs and encourage those that have not gotten theirs to go and get them,” he said, adding that “it’s a civic responsibility that everybody must vote for the ruling party at the state and federal levels.
“I’m here to lead my Igbo brothers and sisters to work together for the success of Asiwaju and the APC. Yoruba’s are my in-laws. If your party doesn’t win, you’re an orphan and you will not get anything. Your party in Lagos State is the All Progressives Congress (APC),” Idimogu added.
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