Nobody is sure of what the Nigeria electoral body, Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), is up to as regards this year’s general elections.
Barely seven weeks to the kickoff of the election with the Presidential and National Assembly polls the voters are still battling with how to secure their voters card whose process of collection ends by Sunday, January 22nd, 2023.
In about ten days time according to the INEC timeline of activities everyone is expected to have collected their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) which qualifies them to.participate in the voting process.
As we speak now, the PVCs collection has been very poor in Edo State going by the number that has been collected so far. The poor collection stuff is not the fault of the voters but of the INEC. What would you say of a situation where two staff of the INEC are assigned to attend to over a thousand PVCs seekers daily most of whom get to the collection centre as early as 4.00am dutifully queing up to be attended to.
Also worrisome is that the venue of the collection changes almost daily from one point to the other. The points of collection been so far apart to each other.
My counsel to the electoral body is that they should either increase the numbers of their staff assigned to carry out the duty per centre; extend the last date of collection or increase the number of collection centres.
The 2023 polls is a turning point for Nigeria so we must get it right or else we are doomed forever. Thus INEC should do the needful so that its role will be a positive talking point in the history of the country.
