Jega: Buying someone’s PVC is futile

He said the PVC must be authenticated by the card reader before it can be used to vote. Jega, who was the special guest of honour at the 12th Daily Trust Dialogue in Abuja, was represented by INEC’s National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education Dr. Chris Iyimoga.He said there is no way […]

He said the PVC must be authenticated by the card reader before it can be used to vote. Jega, who was the special guest of honour at the 12th Daily Trust Dialogue in Abuja, was represented by INEC’s National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education Dr. Chris Iyimoga.
He said there is no way the PVC can be used during the elections by any individual other than their rightful owners. He also said with the use of card readers, the country should expect the best ever elections this year. Dr Iyimoga said, “Yes, INEC is responsible for credible elections. Yes, INEC must provide the materials at the appropriate time but we also need our voters to ensure that they have their PVCs. If you go to your Polling Unit, you are expected to produce the permanent voter’s card and the card reader will scan to ensure that the card is first of all your’s.
“We hope politicians will refrain from buying these cards off innocent hands. whether you have 10,000 cards in your home that are not your’s, you keep them in your box, only cards brought by their right owners would be used. So please, do not give your cards out to anybody; not even for N2,000. First of all it is useless if a politician purchases and secondly he will also make you lose your legitimate right to vote. We are therefore calling on all citizens of this country to shun the idea of purchasing other people’s cards for a pittance.”
He urged politicians to make use of the vast number of youths, whom he said constitute over 60 percent of Nigeria’s population, towards canvassing for their votes instead of purchasing their votes with paltry sums of money. “Statistics show that about 60 – 70 percent of this country is made up of this group and that a number of politicians instead of going to canvass on issues to get their votes, give them paltry sums which they use to purchase drugs and other substances. They are the ones used to snatch ballot boxes. Of course you cannot snatch ballot box now with this card reader. If you carry the ballot box, you lose everything because it is card reader. If 200 people are registered in a PU for instance and only 58 of them are covered and those 58 are authenticated by the card reader, it will put details on that point, we take it from the server because the results are simultaneously sent in.
“So we cannot have a situation where in the PU you said you have registered 58 and you go to the next point and say you have 250,000. It just will not work this time. We are promising this country the best of elections,” Iyimoga said. He also took time to explain the process of the cleaning up of the voter’s register that culminated in the elimination of over 4 million multiple registrations that eventually led to the release of 68.8 million registered voters for the 2015 elections.
While calling on stakeholders including the media to help towards voter education and the campaign against cards selling by their owners, the INEC commissioner reiterated the commitment of INEC to distribute all the remaining PVCs to their owners before the first series of elections on February 14.