FCT residents’ bumpy road to PVC collection

For many reasons, it is still difficult for many would-be voters to exchange their temporary voter cards for the permanent ones in almost all the centres in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This is despite repeated assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that it has printed out all the cards. ELEOJO IDACHABA, who went round the Territory to ascertain the situation, reports.

As the deadline set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC for all prospective voters to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs) expire by February 8, 2018, it is still a difficult hurdle to cross for many prospective voters who throng collection centres to get theirs in Abuja and environs.

Investigation by Blueprint Weekend conducted in Bwari and Abuja Municipal Area Councils of the FCT a few weeks to the deadline indicates that while everyone who registered is willing to get their cards, the facilities provided in many of the collection centres are far too less compared to the surging crowd. This leads to the facilities being overstretched in many centres.

The complaints

For instance, at the collection centre located in a primary school at Kubwa village of Bwari area council last week, the desperation among prospective voters to get their cards led to a serious fight between two adults over who should first be attended to. It took the intervention of operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to bring the fracas under control, but that was after the security officials exchanged blows. The problem of the centre, according to investigation, is that the number of INEC staff deployed to issue the cards is far less compared to the number of persons seeking to collect their cards. The fact that prospective voters are subjected to standing for hours in long queues is made worse by the scorching heat from the sun. Those who spoke with Blueprint Weekend said the shoddy arrangement can disenfranchise them from exercising their rights in the 2019 general election. A man, who called himself

Adams, said: “It seems that INEC just want to suffer everybody and in the process those who are tired of waiting will eventually find their way out of this place without collecting the cards otherwise how can they deploy only two persons to this kind of busy place when the persons waiting to collect their cards here are far more than 200. You can see the crowd yourself. That was why those two men fought badlythat time. We are supposed to have gone past this,” he said.

He wasn’t alone. Speaking at the same place, Mrs. Martha Ocholi told Blueprint Weekend that she had been to that centre more than three times to collect her card because the Commission said all cards registered as from April 2017 to date were ready, but that each time she came around, she was told by the officials to return after a week.

“It is less than three days to the end of the exercise in this centre.If I cannot get it here, I will not go to Bwari to collect it because I don’t even know whether my vote will count,” she said.

If the cards collection centre in Kubwa village was bad, it was worse  in a primary school located at Dutsen Alhaji, another community in Bwari area council. When this reporter visited this densely populated area to witness the collection exercise, he observed that not only were the officials unfriendly, they locked themselves in a tight classroom with upper windows so that no one could have access to them except when they called from within. While waiting to monitor how the collection was done there, it was further discovered it took an average of 40 minutes before a card could be traced for a crowd of over 300 people. This is beside the number of crowds that were desperately waiting under a mango tree in the school. It was also discovered that part of the problem of the area is that it services locations like Dawaki and Kubwa Expressway and parts of Kubwa Owner Occupier Housing Estate.

In Garki area of the city, it was discovered that many people at the Garki Primary School in Abuja and other collection centres also found it difficult to collect their cards.

Festus Acho, a resident of Area 2, said: “Many of the workers here are very lousy and rude. They kept us under the sun while they sheltered themselves in the classroom. Some of us have been on standby since 2016 to collect our cards, each time we came here, their explanation cannot be understood despite repeated assurances by the commission that all cards are ready for collection. Now that they said all cards have been printed, the narrative has not changed.”

Another would-be voter, who identified herself as Cynthia Odabe, simply said it was easier for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for her to get her PVCs.

“I was disenfranchised in the last general elections. Since 2011 that I applied to collect the permanent voter card, I have tried without success to get my card. Even though my name is on INEC’s voter register, they said they don’t have my card. So, please help me ask them where they kept my PVC.”

An Abuja-based journalist, Paul Usoro, told Blueprint Weekend in Kubwa that he registered in Kubwa in September 2017 for which his card is supposed to be ready by now, but that up till the time of writing this report, he was yet to get his card. He said: “I don’t know what they are doing with my card. I registered since September 2017 and was told since November 2018 that my card and others who registered in 2017 were ready for collection. I informed them during registration about where I live and it was registered in that name. I have my temporary card with me showing my complete information, but each time I visited the collection centre in Dutse, I will be directed to Kubwa where I registered. Three times now, I have visited both Kubwa and Dutse, but they said my card is still not ready. What then do they mean by saying all cards are ready for collection? The nature of my job is such that it would be difficult for me to start heading to Bwari to collect it any moment I cannot get it here. What that means is that I have been disenfranchised. I want the authorities to know that this is what I have been passing through. What is even amazing is that Madam Ndidi Okafor, the head of Voter Education in the Territory is aware. She had tried to help me by directing me to where my card is precisely located buy each time I went, they simply told me to come back that my card cannot be found. I hope no one has collected mine by proxy.”

Last year, Kemi Yusuf, another journalist, lamented to Blueprint Weekend about inability to get her card after several attempts at one of the centres in Abuja. She once said: “This is the third time I have tried to get my PVC and I am told they omitted the cards of those who registered in August 2017. INEC for the funding and goodwill it enjoys can’t be rated as one of the above average government agencies. I havenow filled a form for omission as if it’s my fault. I wonder how many people in this poverty capital of the world will have money and time to check for their PVC for over three times.” Whether or not she has succeeded at last cannot be confirmed, but her story is not different from what many still express especially as the deadline is around the corner.

So, as February 8 draws nearer, it is expected that the Commission would have overcome its hurdles, but investigation, however, shows that the story is the same in Bwari, Gwagwalada and AMAC as prospective voters besieged approved centres to collect their cards. A voter Ojo Adeyemo, who spoke to Blueprint Weekend, said at a designated centre in Gwagawalda on Monday, January 21, this year, that “the Commission should extend the deadline beyond February 8 considering the crowd I’m seeing here. It is not possible for everyone to be attended to before that time considering the slow pace of the exercise.”

Speaking on the sideline of the hurdles Nigerians should jump to get their cards, Ms. Okafor expressed regret over the whole inconveniences, saying, “We have been distributing PVCs in the six area councils and 62 wards in the last one year or so. We earlier appealed to residents to take advantage of the window of opportunity opened since then for everyone to get theirs in order to avoid rush but many did not heed the advice. It is not because the commission is happy that everyone is going through this inconveniency but it is a sacred duty of every citizen.”

Latest INEC time-table

According to the national commissioner in charge of information and voter education, Festus Okoye, the ongoing collection of cards in all the collection centres would as from January 21 be done only at the headquarters of local government areas or designated centres till February 8, after which the room for collection would be closed till after the elections.

INEC chairman Prof Yakubu Mahmoud, early this year, said the Commission had printed out PVCs for all new registered voters between 2017 and 2018 which were ready for collection. “The Commission has printed all cards between 2017 and 2018 and they are ready forcollection. We have also printed out all the requests for placement of lost cards, request for transfers and relocations. The last batch that we printed was for those who applied for transfer and relocation and those who applied for replacement of damaged and defaced cards. These would be delivered immediately after the Christmas break. So, we are happy to say that all 14.5 million or so new registered voters have their cards printed and delivered to states; therefore, we are good to go,” he said.

Analyst speaks

Worried by this development, a policy analyst, Victor Tehemba, said: “More than ever, there is a general clamour for every voting adult to get their PVC and be ready to vote out any incompetent government inthis coming election. Therefore, the importance of PVC cannot be over-emphasised, however, it has been erroneously preached that getting PVC and the actual voting is enough to change a bad government. That is far from the truth.”

According to him, the system of collection can be more simplified than what is currently obtained in the country.

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