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The enthusiasm that greeted the 2023 voters’ registration exercise affirms the quick rise in political consciousness and determination to oxygenate the nation’s nascent democracy. And recent development in the country seems to change the political architecture with an incredible rise of young people showing more concern about who should lead them.
Since 1999, voters registration has leapfrogged such that from 57 million registered voters, the figure rose to an unprecedented 84 million in 2019, out of which about 29 million people showed up at the polling booths, and Buhari won the contest with over 15 million votes against 11 million votes by Atiku, who came second leaving a clear victory margin of 4 million votes. As the typical politician will say, every vote counts but a 4 million vote margin is humongous. A few hours from now, about 87.2 million Nigerians who collected their PVCs for the 2023 elections will march out and decide the faith and direction the nation will go.
Incidentally, however INEC had reeled out this figure and stated that about 6.2 million people did not collect their PVCs for this election season, and they gave reasons which ranged from the very plausible to the sheer absurd
True to character, Nigerians waited until the last minute and came out like a mob to collect their PVCs, but this was within the window period given by INEC, and while such embarrassing national culture is unacceptable, the drama from INEC and its officials has left a sour taste in the mouth.
We are still trying to condone the CBN mess of a brilliant naira redesign policy jaundiced by shabby implementation. And here we are confronted with INEC managing an election with over 6.2 million disenfranchised people – a figure that is more than the decider of the outcome of previous elections.
While we should, undoubtedly, commend INEC for their claim of readiness for the elections, one will not be shocked to see the shame of poor logistics, incompetence, systemic failures, incoherent and untidy delivery of the entire processes that have taken them four years to prepare and forestall.
So, one continues to wonder if the public sector is bewitched or if public servants suddenly slipped into the disturbing mode of non-performance when it matters most.
The question under close scrutiny is: how come over 6.2 million registered voters ended up disenfranchised.
How could we condone such irresponsibility by INEC, considering all the drama that trailed the collection and management of PVC distribution across the country? Move away from the shenanigans of the political class who are hell-bent on compromising the processes through the flagrant act of vote buying, ballot box snatching, result writing, inducement of electoral officers, intimidation, violence, and what have you. Yet another big concern that’s added is the series of outcome of elections in Nigeria since 1959, is the shameful misadventures of this electoral umpire.
It is sad enough that Nigerians exhibited their bad character of waiting to the dieing minute and thus overwhelming INEC, but how can one explain that millions of PVCs were not at their presupposed, designated centres?
How in the world could some INEC officials turn the whole process into a Wuse Market activity, and to date, no one was arrested or prosecuted? How can one even explain the recent happenings where thousands of PVCs -sensitive material, are found at strange places outside INEC’s control? INEC should explain to Nigerians, outside the ballot papers and technologies to run the elections, what else is very critical to voting than the use of PVCs. But the electoral umpire prides itself that it is ready to deliver the 2023 election taking place today. It prides itself of having distributed about 80% of the PVCs and then scored itself very high, and undoubtedly that is a pass mark, but the question is, what happened to the remaining 20%? If out of the 80% you claimed to have distributed, and we heard that some were with foreigners caught by immigration the other day, while some were seen in sock away pits, and roadside gutters. Even INEC alleged obtaining information about the burial of some PVCs in some places, then what are we talking about.? There are cases where the PVCs of non-indigenes and people of other religious faith, depending on the locations, were deliberately not available. Then less than 48 hours before the elections, thousands of abandoned PVCs surfaced in Enugu and were carried by some good Samaritans to a radio station for onward transmission to the authorities.
So, INEC what is the pride about.? Who is responsible for managing the process of PVC distribution at the INEC headquarters and in the local governments? In whose custody are these PVCs kept? Who takes inventories of what was collected and signed off for what comes to the security vaults of INEC? How can thousands of PVCs go missing and remain outside INEC control, and nobody is alarmed? Nobody is asking questions.
When a similar thing happened sometime in July 2022, live on Channels TV, Mr. Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, assured Nigerians that these allegations will not be taken lightly. He said the Commission had commenced immediate investigation, and anyone found culpable in this diabolical scheme intended to disenfranchise Nigerians will be sanctioned under the law. He didn’t stop there but went on, “Every eligible Nigerian who registered as a voter is entitled to their PVC. The constitutional right to vote in any election must never be suppressed or abridged in any way” and “As far as the record of the Commission is concerned, PVCs have been printed for all valid registrants in Nigeria … and delivered to all the States of the Federation for collection by voters. We will not allow retrogressive elements to sabotage our efforts,”
But what we have today, sadly, is all cheap talk. Can we stress any less that bad governance starts way back from the electoral processes leading to the emergence of the wrong political leadership? If the electoral processes are flawed, can the outcome be any better? Therefore, it is pertinent to call Prof. Mahmood Yakubu and his team to question after the elections, and the supervisory Ministry of INEC be courageous enough to ask INEC to present the over 6.2 million uncollected PVCs for scrutiny. INEC should recover every single uncollected PVC for forensic audit else the sanctity of the election is suspect already because Nigerians are asking: are all these anomalies deliberately orchestrated to jeopardize the chances of some candidates.
INEC should submit itself to an independent audit on the management and distribution of the PVCs in this political dispensation. Until we ask this supposed bastion institution some pertinent questions and hold it accountable, this democracy will remain infantile and a mere charade. However, there should be some constitutional reconfiguration of INEC.
Why should the President appoint the INEC boss at the federal level and governors at the state levels? In Nigeria, we know the implications of such even if we deceive ourselves with unrealistic fantasies to the moon and back, it will take a President without a stake in the process for INEC to be truly independent. The import of the election is upon us, so INEC should retrieve the over 6.2 million uncollected PVCs and deposit them with the Central Bank of Nigeria, or the next political dispensation should demand the investigation of the leadership of the Mahmud Yakubu-led INEC and commence the process of a total overhaul and restructuring.
Again, no democracy is ever better than the processes leading to its enthronement. This fact must be taken to heart.