There were revelations in Abuja on
Monday on why President Goodluck Jonathan and the national leadership of
the ruling Peoples Democratic Party were angry with the Chairman of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega.
A week-long investigation by our
correspondent in Abuja showed that the President and his party are not
happy with Jega over his insistence that the commission would use the
Permanent Voter Cards for the election.
The
PVCs were used for the conduct of the governorship elections in both
Ekiti and Osun states, which were won by the PDP and the All
Progressives Congress respectively.
Apart from this, the President and the
party were also angry that the commission was going ahead with its
decision to use card readers.
This technology was however not used in both Ekiti and Osun states elections.
The commission has said that the card
reader can only read PVC issued by it and that any person that shows up
at the polling unit without a PVC or with a card not issued by INEC will
not be able to vote.
It was learnt that the Presidency and
the ruling party were not totally against the use of the PVCs, but they
were not happy with the use of card readers.
A worker in the Presidency who spoke
with our correspondent on Sunday queried the insistence of INEC under
the leadership of Jega to go ahead with the two items.
He said, “Now, what we are saying is
that yes, the PVCs were used in both Ekiti and Osun governorship
elections but the way and manner the PVCs are being distributed now is
suspicious.
“Look at the figure of those who have
collected from the northern part of the country and look at the figure
from the southern part, where President Jonathan hails from.
“If the election is going to be by
ethnic sentiment alone, you will know that our President has been
defeated already. So, that’s the reason.
“Look at Ogun and Lagos states, which we
all know are politically sophisticated. Why are the electorates not
picking their PVCs? We are worried.”
In terms of PVCs collection, figures
released by the commission indicated that Ogun State is lagging behind
among all the states of the federation, including the Federal Capital
Territory.
In the state, only 808,590 out of the
1,829,534 registered voters had collected their PVCs. This figure
represents a mere 44.20 per cent.
But the commission said that 1,387,401 PVCs had been delivered to the state.
Lagos State with 5,822,207 registered
voters had recorded 63.44 per cent of the PVCs collection. This shows
that 3,693,355 of the cards had been picked by their owners.
But the commission said that 5,558,062 cards had been delivered for voters in the state.
This means that there are 1,864,707 PVCs yet to be picked by their owners in the state.
When asked whether the refusal of the
owners of the PVCs to pick them up could be attributed to Jega, the
source said that the commission should embark on more enlightenment.
On the issue of card readers, a member
of the National Working Committee of the party, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, said that there was no way the machine would be effective
in the area of accreditation of voters.
When this issue was raised before the
commission, an explanatory note presented to our correspondent showed
that accreditation of a voter using the card reader is expected to last
for about 20 seconds.
From Punch
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