LATE arrival to collection centres and early departure of INEC officials is one of the identified causes of the frustrations Nigerians are facing in collecting their Permanent Voter’s Cards, PVCs. Swelling of crowds at some centres caused by delays in identification of owners of the PVCs is another major problem. 

In sensitive transactions as obtains in banking, when a customer furnishes a valid identity card, he or she is paid. We wonder why it should not be so in PVC collection exercise.

From a report published on Saturday Vanguard, a pattern in the problem is discernible. In Plateau, Enugu, Abia, Akwa Ibom and Delta states, there are problems in terms of surging crowds of registrants who want to collect their cards occasioned by shortage of INEC officials.

But in Kano, Katsina, Ondo and Osun, there are no problems. In Kaduna, “crowds of registrants turned up and INEC staff were many and attended to people in good time,” said the report. Now, gunmen have even attacked PVC collection centres in Imo State. This can only leave one wondering what is happening? But it is still not late to save this country from dubious, desperate politicians bent on bringing down this whole house we call Nigeria.

In our editorial last Friday, we recounted the events, especially the electoral frauds, that triggered the first military coup in Nigeria. We pointed out that all the political conditions that preceded the fraudulent Parliamentary elections of 1964, the 1966 military coup, and the civil war, appear to be returning to the stage in 2023.

Chris Offodile, in his biography of Dr. M.I. Okpara, provided a slight view of the rancorous political climate in 1964 and 1965: “In the North and the West, the opposition parties complained bitterly that their followers could not file their nomination papers. They protested that the Nigerian National Alliance (an alliance of the NPC and Chief Akintola’s NNDP), once they had filed the nomination papers of their candidates in private arrangements with the electoral officers, kept the electoral offices locked and their officials unavailable.”

INEC should no longer fold its arms and continue to watch politicians, and even her own staff, violate the Electoral Act. If INEC cannot prosecute politicians who violate the rules, it should at least openly make examples of its own erring staff as deterrence to others.    While announcing the extension of the deadline for collection of PVCs, the INEC National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, had admitted that the Commission is disturbed by allegations of discriminatory issuance of PVCs in some locations, confirming that it is against the law.

“All bonafide registrants are entitled to their PVCs and to use them to vote on Election Day in any part of the country where they are registered,” Mr. Okoye said.

INEC should not stop at “being disturbed”, it should wake up and act before desperate politicians and compromised INEC staff set the country ablaze again. A stitch in time saves nine.