The attention of the leadership of International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law has again been drawn to
the latest public statement made by the Chairman of INEC, Prof Attahiru Jega,
blaming Nigerian registered voters for not coming out en masse to collect their
PVCs and absolving his Commission of any blame associated with their
poor distribution and collection. The INEC Chairman was responding to our
recent letter to the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria, dated January 21,
2015 over the issue as well as a comment on the issue made by the National
Security Adviser, Mr. Sambo Dasuki in UK, while responding to a question put
across to him by a journalist, Mr. Theodore Damian over the issue of
disenfranchisement of over 30 million registered voters based on non
distribution of PVCs.
Mr. Sambo Dasuki had expressed same
concerns and disappointment expressed by millions of other Nigerians
particularly the registered voters numbering 30, 059, 085 including the Sultan
of Sokoko, who, till date, have not received or been issued with their
legitimate PVCs. He concluded that if it could take INEC one whole
year to distribute only 38, 774, 391 PVCs, what is the possibility of the
Commission receiving and distributing the remaining 30, 059, 085 PVCs
less than three weeks to the all important February 2015 polls including 14,
491, 866 not yet produced and delivered to the Commission by its
contractors/suppliers. On our part, while we did not call for the shifting of
the dates of the polls, we insisted that all the registered voters must receive
their PVCs. We proffered solutions as in how the problem of the massive
disenfranchisement could be remedied including taking the PVCs to the
homes of the registered voters or allowing the registered voters to vote with
either their PVCs or TVCs (temporary voters’ cards).
However, despite these genuine,
legitimate and justiciable national outcries, the Chairman of
INEC is unperturbed and determined to disenfranchise millions of Nigerian
voters particularly registered voters numbering 30, 059, 085. Reasons for his
insistence are not farfetched. Our forensic evaluation of the Commission’s
distribution of PVCs across the country clearly shows that the
Commission, headed by Prof Attahiru Jega seems to have successfully put
electoral demographic statistics hugely in favour of the North, which will
allow it clinch the presidency of the country come February 14, 2015. This
blatant electoral demographic scheming is the third out of three-stage
designed strategy for the North to emerge in the country’s presidency. The
first was botched creation of 30, 000 polling units with grossly lopsided
geopolitical distribution and the second was the issue of strange
preferential voting treatment for the Northeast IDPs said to be
918, 416, who are mostly of Muslim population. The mother of all these was
systematic and careful extermination of Christian populations and settlements
in the North by Boko Haram oiled insurgency to make the voting an all Muslim
affair in the core North.
In the entire North, 24, 481, 487
citizens have received their PVCs and empowered to vote, whereas in the
entire South, only 16, 151, 298 are empowered to vote having been issued with
their PVCs. Owing to insecurity and other unsafe conditions created in
the North, over four million Southerners mostly of Igbo tribe have fled the
North and more three million will flee or leave the area between now and first
week of February.
Out of these numbers, up to five
million of them will not vote in the said crucial polls owing to absence of
their PVCs. There are also those that were recently captured in various continuous
voters’ registration exercises across the country particularly in the
South, who have received only Temporary Voters’ Cards. Many others have
not even received PVCs or TVCs till date. These, INEC said will not vote
because they do not possess PVCs.
Our questions to Prof Attahiru Jega
and his INEC are: If Nigerian registered voters are to be blamed for not
coming out to collect their PVCs, numbering 15, 567, 219, which forms the
number of undistributed PVCs; are they also to be blamed for 14, 491, 866 that
are yet to be produced and delivered to the Commission till date? Are Nigerian
registered voters responsible for 14, 491, 866 PVCs names that have not been
captured till date only twenty days to the presidential poll? Is it also the
Nigerian registered voters that should be blamed for those voters registered
recently who have not been captured either in PVCs or TVCs? Are Nigerian
registered voters also responsible for hundreds of thousands of missing
registered voters from the INEC’s National Register of Voters such as in Ogbaru
LGA of Anambra State where 9, 000 registered names are missing from the INEC’s
manual and digital data?
It is our firm conclusion that the
Jega’s INEC has already rigged the presidential poll demographically speaking
in favour of the North. It is still shocking and magical as how the Commission
effected high percentage distribution of PVCs in the troubled
geopolitical zone of the Northeast to the extent that the State of Bauchi has
so far received 1, 509, 255, out of the so called registered voters of 2, 502,
609. The statistical implication of this is that the PVCs recipients in
Bauchi State alone equal the total PVCs recipients in Anambra and Imo
States put together. While a total of 1, 544, 793 PVCs have so far been
distributed in the two States (Anambra 862, 747, Imo 682, 046), total of 1,
509, 255 PVCs have so far been distributed in Bauchi State alone. While
five States in the troubled region of Northeast have received 4, 886, 499 PVCs
as of date, only 3, 944, 242 have received theirs in the entire five States
of the Southeast.
Our further and final questions to
Jega’s INEC are: what magic is behind such high percentage PVCs
distribution in the troubled Northeast? Are they hoarded in the
warehouses of some, if not many district heads/Emirs for onward transfer to
Almajiris, infants and livestock on poll day? Were their owners located in
the Cameroonian mountains, Adamawa hills, Sambisa forests, bushes
and purdahs and issued or were they ferried from these hideouts to the
collection centers via helicopters, horses and camels? In
view of the magical distribution of PVCs in the troubled Northeast with high
percentage, why thickened desperation to get the Northeast IDPs to vote at all
costs, while disenfranchising millions of other registered voters in the
South?
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, B.Sc. (Hons.), Criminology & Security
Studies
Board Chairman, International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law
+2348174090052 (office)
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