PVC: PDP, APC in war of words

The All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party engaged in a war of words on Sunday over hitches in the distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards by the Independent National Electoral Commission. While the APC alleged that INEC had programmed the exercise to favour the PDP, the ruling party fired back by accusing it (APC) of having a hidden agenda. The APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, said that the fact that most of the states where hitches in the distribution of the PVCs were pronounced had the highest number of voters and were under the control of the APC, pointed to a clear collusion between INEC and the PDP. The states are Kano, Edo, Ogun, Imo, Lagos, Rivers and Nasarawa. The party also described the development as a programmed incompetence which could be traced to INEC’s ICT unit, with the intent of sabotaging the PVC distribution process in key states. It urged the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to fish out the fifth columnists behind the sabotage and sanction them appropriately. The statement partly read, “If INEC is to organise a free, credible and transparent election next February, it must quickly return to the drawing board to fashion out how to ensure that all Nigerians who are eligible to vote are able to do so without hindrance, and also purge itself of the fifth columnists within its ranks who are bent on sabotaging the elections. “Having realised it cannot win a free and fair elections in 2015, the PDP has come up with the plan to suppress the votes in the APC states which also harbour the highest number of registered voters, especially Lagos, Rivers, Kano and Sokoto states, wondering why the exercise was better organised in states without a huge number of votes.” The APC also alleged that there was a two- pronged game plan to skew the 2015 general elections in favour of the PDP. That the first step, according to the party is to mess up the collection of the PVCs in states with the highest number of registered voters so as to suppress the votes in those states. The second phase is to delay the voter registration in the affected states, so that they will not meet the requirement to participate in next year’s election, since INEC would not have finished the voter registration process in those states. It also alleged that there was a plot to postpone the elections in the affected states so that the PDP-led government could then use the Ekiti formula that included massive militarisation and widespread intimidation to prevent free and fair elections in the states. APC dismissed INEC’s excuses for the botched hiccups as lame. But the PDP, through its National Publicity Secretary , Chief Olisa Metuh, said while it would have allowed the INEC to respond to the APC allegations, it decided to respond because the opposition party was bent on diverting attention from “its bad and suspicious activities.” Metuh, in a telephone interview with one our correspondents in Abuja, added that while the APC was making accusations, it might also be doing some things which were aimed at rigging the election. He said, “We are ready for the election. We have a formidable candidate whom we have endorsed. “Let the APC bring out its own candidate and face us. The APC has a hidden agenda and we have all seen its antics in the past. “This time around, it won’t work. Whatever evil the party is planning will not work. It might be the one colluding with some people to rig but it won’t work.” Metuh asked Nigerians to monitor the activities of the opposition party as the battle for the 2015 general elections rages on. Before the war of words by the two parties, the Civil Society Network Against Corruption and a Lagos lawyer, Jimi Agbaje, had flayed INEC over what they considered as the shoddy distribution of the PVCs by the electoral body. While the CSNAC described INEC’s performance as abysmal, Agbaje threatened to go to court if disenfranchised as a result of poor preparation by INEC. The CSNAC Chairman, Lanre Suraj, said, “With the sophisticated nature and population of Lagos State, the performance of INEC is quite abysmal in terms of the disappointment in the PVC distribution.” Agbaje, who described the PVC distribution as a flop in Lagos, called for the immediate removal of Jega. He said, “It has been terrible. I will go to court if I’m disenfranchised. I have been there three days and nobody was there to attend to me. I will never allow any political shenanigan to deprive me of my right of franchise. “This is a deliberate attempt to shortchange Nigerians. Let me use this opportunity to call on the Federal Government to remove the INEC chairman immediately. With the way things are going, if Jega is not sacked, he is going to wreck this democracy.” But the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, in a statement and an interview with The PUNCH, in Abuja, on Sunday, denied the allegations against the commission. He also said that the Lagos exercise had been extended by 24 hours. Idowu said, “In particular, it is completely false that INEC has removed the records of 1.4 million persons from the register of voters compiled in 2011 in Lagos State. “It is true that at the end of the 2011 general registration exercise, the commission announced a figure of 6.1 million registrants in the state. “But when that data was subjected to the Automated Fingerprints Identification System software, 82,892 multiple registrations were eliminated. “Also, there was the technical challenge of loss of data and incomplete data affecting about one million records – mostly in 1,792 polling units that were identified and made public before the present exercise. That was why/how the Post- Business Rule figure for Lagos State (on the basis of which PVCs were printed) came down to about 4.6 million registrants.” According to him, a pre-acknowledge data loss and incomplete data of some registrants is not a “conspiracy” issue as has been alleged by some individuals. He said, “It is a back-end technical challenge that is far from sealing the fate of affected persons and for which INEC has already put in place measures to ensure redress. “The commission has made provision for eligible persons for whom PVCs could not been printed due to data loss or defective data to come out from Wednesday, November 12 to Monday, November 17, 2014 for their data to be recaptured during the CVR.” Idowu further explained that in special consideration for the 1,792 polling units in Lagos State where the challenge is much pronounced, the CVR will take place at the polling unit level as against the registration area level in other parts of the state. While reassuring the public of INEC’s unwavering sincerity of purpose, Idowu said the commission regretted the inconvenience caused members of the public by the hitches. Idowu said, “Contrary to allegations in some quarters, no duly registered person has been delisted from the Register of Voters neither will any be denied his/ her PVC. “This reassurance is against the backdrop of temporary challenges that have been experienced in the third phase of the distribution of PVCs in some states, which the commission has been making vigorous efforts to remediate.” According to him, the distribution of the PVCs since Friday November 7 in nine states is under the third phase of the exercise. He said, “Continuous Voter Registration is scheduled to hold in the same states from Wednesday, November 12 to Monday, November 17 2014. Similar exercises have already been conducted in 24 other states and the Federal Capital Territory under the first and the second phases of the programme. He added that the commission had deferred the distribution of PVCs in four other states earlier listed for the third phase because printers were yet to fully deliver the cards. This, according to Idowu, is partly the same reason that the commission rescheduled the distribution of PVCs in limited areas of Lagos and Nasarawa states. He also said the outstanding cards would however be distributed in good time before the 2015 general elections. “They are presently being produced and have been scheduled for distribution under the fourth phase of the exercise from Friday, November 28th to Sunday, November 30th, 2014”, Idowu said. The Minister of Water Resources, Mrs. Sarah Ochekpe, on Sunday also asked INEC to extend the time for the distribution of the PVCs. The minister told journalists in Jos that the two days earmarked for the exercise in Plateau State was inadequate as some people did not find their names on the register. She said, “I wish to say that the distribution of the permanent voter cards is successful in Plateau because I am just coming from my village, and I was able to collect mine and that means people in the rural areas were also able to get to get theirs. “Though it was noticed that there are some hiccups here and there, but I expect that INEC will take advantage of the registration of voters, which starts on the 12th to ensure that those who have attained the age of 18 are registered and also that those who could not find their names in the registers are properly captured.”