Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts (ASSPT), has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to extend the Jan. 29 deadline for the collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to ensure that all registered voters are able to collect theirs.
The Director, ASSPT, Sam Amadi said this at a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday with the theme, ‘the right to vote must not be abridged’.
Amadi said INEC must strive hard to ensure that all registered voters were able to exercise their franchise by voting in the 2023 general election.
He said that the school had continued to monitor collections of PVCs across the country, saying while there were some improvement, there were still so many outstanding issues to be resolved.
He said the organisation was worried about reports of alleged refusal or reluctancy by INEC officials to give out PVCs to registered voters.
“In other places, there are reports of extortion of desperate Nigerian by INEC official who are allegedly charging fees before collection of PVC.
He added that as theJan. 29 deadline drew nearer, many registered voters had made effort to collect their PVCs but to no avail due to alleged misbehaviour of INEC members of staff or avoidable operational hitches.
Amadi said there were also reports that a significant number of registered voters had been turned back home on the ground that the cards were not available or yet to be printed.
All these logistic failures are avoidable with better planning and round-the-clock registration and collection of voter cards he added.
He advised INEC to collate the PVCs of students in schools and send it to their various campuses for collection.
He suggested that INEC should consider fixing specific days of the week where registered voters can walk into its offices and collect their PVCs as part of a long term measures.
Amadi said he had already informed registered voters who had made efforts but unable to get their PVCs to document such efforts to be used as legal evidence against INEC after the general election.
He also commended Ondo, Cross River, Ekiti, Ebonyi and Ogun State governments who had declared public holiday to enable civil servants in the states collect their PVCs.
He also advised schools to consider public holiday for students to collect their PVCs.
Kenneth Eze on his part advised INEC to set up a situation room for PVC collection, where registered voters can lay their complaints, allegations, or challenges relating to PVC collection.