The collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) has begun. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), last Monday, commenced the distribution of the all-important PVCs at its local government offices nationwide.
The commission had announced that Nigerians can now obtain their cards between 12 December and 22 January 2023.
The Commission also resolved to devolve PVC collection to the 8,809 Registration Areas/Wards from 6 January to 15 January 2023.
Media reports so far indicate that the collection process has been anything but smooth. Just like the registration process, the collection exercise has been a crowded experience.
Furthermore, the collection of the PVCs in FCT, showed that the exercise commenced simultaneously at INEC FCT headquarters and its six area council offices.
At one of those Centres, some of the registered voters who came in their hundreds were seen on the queue at the gate at INEC FCT state office. The effort to be attended to was hectic indeed.
It was further reported that the collection was done in wards in the FCT, depending on the mode of registration, including those who did fresh registration, transfers, requests for replacement and others.
Expectedly some of the residents who spoke to journalists expressed mixed reactions to the exercise.
While some, after collecting their PVCs commended the process for the collection, saying it went on well and smoothly, others decried the poor organisation of the process.
As a newspaper, we believe that the process of collection shouldn’t be hectic. As much as these are still early days yet on the collection process, we think the INEC can do better.
We know that the commission has been having an uphill task dealing with the antics of desperate politicians who have been preoccupied with undermining the entire electoral process for their selfish ends. We admit that these are indeed trying times for the commission.
However, with the benefit of how chaotic the registration process was, we believe that enough lessons would have been learnt on how to make the collection process a lot easier for the average voter. Simply put, we had expected that the commission began the process of decentralising the collection process much sooner.
We do not pretend that every Nigerian voter would easily comply as expected especially with the seeming knack for last-minute rush. This much was witnessed during the registration process. We recall how tedious it was to make eligible voters register within the period.
Still, we believe that the commission should from the go begin the process of ensuring that the process of collection is made as easy for voters as possible.
Like it did with the registration process, we urge the commission to make the collection as close to the people as possible. This is as crucial as sensitising the people on the need to come out and get their PVCs.
Since it has become abundantly clear to all that the INEC has made the use of PVC in the 2023 general election non-negotiable, sacrosanct even, we expect that the commission will channel sufficient effort in ensuring that every eligible voter gets his or her PVC.
This might even include the extension of the collection process just like it did with the registration process. This of course is not being unmindful of those who have a tendency for waiting to the last minute to comply.
The least we expect is for the commission to manifestly show that it has done enough to ensure all eligible voters have the opportunity to collect their cards.
Also, It is interesting to observe that the political parties and candidates are not exerting as much energy in urging voters to go get their PVCs as they are doing in advocating votes. Clearly, they have left all of that task to the electoral commission.
We would have thought that political parties and candidates would lead the charge in sensitising voters to engage the process of PVC collection.
With less than 70 days before the election, time is of the essence.
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