THE national electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says there are 20 million Nigerians who registered for Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) but have yet to collect their cards. The situation is ironic in a country where a preponderance of the people are yearning for a change in the status quo. How will the government and political leadership or platforms they believe have not lived up to expectation be changed if about 20 million people who cared to register to vote and got PVCS failed to collect them? Are those who have yet to take possession of their PVCs from INEC aware that the PVC is arguably the most potent instrument available to them to effect a peaceful and legitimate change in a democracy? Is it not strange that people say they want change but are not voting?
No amount of lamentation and seemingly popular expression of disapproval of the performance of any government in the traditional and social media will alter anything, except through the instrumentality of the ballot. The alternative, which is chaos and incitement of anarchy to force a change through the military or violent non-state actors, is uncivilised and has become unpopular. And more significantly, the outcome can hardly enjoy warm reception and the crucial support of the international community. Thus, the PVC is very important to any serious minded citizen who aspires to participate in the political process and cause change to happen.
Yes, a lot of people are of the opinion that the PVC is fast losing its value as a potent instrument for change because they believe that political outcomes are predetermined. This might have been the case during the era of crude electoral malfeasance that was characterised by ballot box snatching and other illegal and brazen electoral malpractices. However, the dynamics appear to be changing. The fact that today, unscrupulous politicians and political office seekers are now focusing on vote buying is a testament to the fact that votes do actually count. To be sure, we regard vote merchandising as a criminal, socially repugnant and morally reprehensible act that latches onto the electorate’s misery to rob them of their conscience, but it shows that votes are indeed valuable. If votes were useless, no politician would pay for them. Consequently, mouthing change on social media but lacking PVCs to bring about the desired alternative is tantamount to mere irritant noise.
The number of unclaimed PVCs is appallingly huge. Registering and not collecting PVCs amounts to nothing in the long run. Perhaps it is imperative to underscore the lack of provision of leadership in this regard by certain entities who are directly or tangentially involved in the electoral process. Indeed, it is an indictment on the effectiveness of their leadership that many citizens registered but failed to collect their PVCs. The INEC cannot be easily exonerated from the huge backlog of uncollected PVCs, as that is evidently symptomatic of suboptimal voter education and sensitisation efforts. INEC needs to sensitise people more. Many believe that the process of collection is tedious, but that is not necessarily the case. The civil society organisations which appear to place far more emphasis on the fidelity of the implementation of the electoral process as spelt out in the books than the attention they devote to sensitising citizens about the imperatives of being armed with their PVCs may also have contributed to the unfortunate case of uncollected voter cards. In the same vein, religious and traditional leaders are in pole positions to influence their members/subjects to collect their PVCs but there is no evidence that they have done that successfully.
In addition to the implications and potential sociopolitical consequences of uncollected PVCs on the society, registering citizens and producing PVCs for them cost a lot of money that shouldn’t be allowed go to waste. The National Orientation Agency (NOA) should embark on intense and aggressive campaigns to alter the ugly trend. Traditional print and electronic media could be engaged to help drive the voter education and sensitisation efforts. More importantly, citizens themselves should rise up to their civic responsibilities which include active involvement in leadership recruitment. Voter apathy can never be an option; it won’t help. And if anything, voter apathy will only end up in prolonging and sustaining, albeit in a legitimate fashion, a state of affairs from which people desire change. That may not be the objective of those who neglected, failed or refused to collect their PVCs, but it is the inevitable outcome their action may foist on all. Therefore, all stakeholders, especially the owners of the uncollected PVCs, should act positively to ensure that the embarrassing number is reduced very significantly.
Twenty million uncollected PVCs, which is almost a quarter of the total registered voters, is an unenviable statistics. This shouldn’t be happening after more than two decades of uninterrupted civil rule.
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