I want to use this opportunity to ask Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be pragmatic and forthright in the dispensation of their statutory duties while justifying the enormous resources and funds it gets both from the federal government and donor organizations by deploying adequate officials/Ad hoc staff to well populated areas, local govt councils and highly pedestrian locations for registration and issuance of permanent voter card (PVC) as against the usual unproductive periodic roaming of INEC officials from one place to another for thesame tasks.

In addition, there are instances of large scale suspicion by the Nigerian populace that there is a deliberate disenfranchisement of would-be eligible voters from registering or the registered voters from collecting their PVCs n certain regions, states, either as a result of their religion or dominance of a particular ethnicity by INEC Officials.

This disenfranchisement comes in different ways, such as unavailability of registration materials, inability to collect PVCs, malfunctioning of registration equipment, frustration of registered voters when they come for registration of collection of PVCs, late arrival and lack lustre attitude of INEC Officials and not to forget the sharp malpractices being committed by INEC staff at various at their various offices.

In other to checkmate this ugly incidences, it's pertinent for INEC to be briefing Nigerians on the number of INEC Ad hoc staff/officials deployed at the areas enumerated before, number of registration machines deployed, the number of PVCs INEC has the capacity to print per day, number of PVCs printed and collected.

This is necessitated so that the more you look the less you see or more cynical, the abracadabra that happened in 2019 prior to the General Elections to repeat itself again, because it is criminal and suspicious to observed from the official INEC's official release(1), that the percentage of Colleced PVCs to Registered voters for Katsina State was the highest with 98.69%, it's even more suspicious that in insurgency prone states like Borno and Yobe has collected PVCs rate to Registered voters of 86.37% and 92.39% respectively mostly more than other peaceful states especially in Southern Nigeria like Lagos, Anambra and Rivers which has 84.19%, 84.73% and 88.11% collected PVCs rate respectively.

And permit me to ask, is this not a clear sign of corruption, abuse of office or display of favouritism as noticed, especially in Katsina, which happens to be the home state of President Muhammad Buhari, the presidential candidate for the All Progressive Congress (APC) at that material time?

I will like to advice the political parties, especially those with sellable candidates that were elected as a result of non-dollarized or money-induced primaries to invest more in awakening people's consciousness on the need to register, collect their PVCs, request for change of voting ward on time if they really want the tsunami to come upon some parties whose primaries were dollarized, "nairanize", marred with disservice and deceit to continue in subjecting the rest of the teeming poverty-striken populace in Nigeria to ceaseless suffering and state of hopelessness.

Unknown to most politically naive Nigerians, the election malpractices has already started if disenfranchisement is well pronounced in areas, states and regions that are determined to emancipate themselves from the shackles of economic quagmire and state of anarchy that has gradually lead to become a failed state because virtually we have fulfilled all the criteria of a failed state.

In conclusion, INEC as a body and their personnel should wake up from their laid-back approach to the upsurge of would-be voters at all registration centers and be up and doing rather than enjoying the cozy comfort of their air-conditioned offices.and doing little at the end of the day.
They need to go further by extending the voters registration period for another four (4) months to enable the upsurge of eligible voters to fulfill their civic duty.

The time is now for Nigerians, especially the Nigerian youths to decide if they want to take back their country from the hand of political oppressors and political bandits and send them into eternal oblivion or they remain in their chains.

George Chukwuneme is a strategist writer, founder of Community SDP and The Igbo Genocide Non-profit organizations, Consultant in Automation, Renewables Energy, Security & ICT Enthusiast.

References:
1. INEC Nigeria, 2019. https://www.inecnigeria.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Total-Registered-Voters-PVC-Collection.pdf

Source: https:///CVRinec
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