Last Thursday, reports claiming that some residents of Lagos State stormed the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the Yaba area to demand the release of their Permanent Voter Cards drew my attention.
The reports also said the protesters carried placards with inscriptions that accused the INEC of planning to deprive non-indigenes of the state of their rights to vote in the forthcoming elections.
The protesters had pointedly declared in some of the placards, “We want to vote, give us our PVCs”, thereby underscoring the general mood and anxiety among the teeming masses of this country whose greatest wish at the moment is to be given the opportunity to decide who rules them.
In their address to officials of the commission, led by the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Akin Orebiyi, the protesters accused INEC of being partial in the distribution of the PVCs.
According to one of the leaders of the protest, Francis Abang, about 70 per cent of the non-indigenes resident in the state had yet to collect their PVCs as of last Thursday.
One after the other, the protesters also reeled out disturbing accounts of botched attempts to collect their PVCs. They told of how they were turned back from accredited polling booths without receiving their cards.
Also, it was alleged that members of a particular ethnic group resident in Lagos were being exclusively targeted for discrimination in the collection of the PVCs.
Of course, Orebiyi had apologised to the protesters for the problems they had encountered and promised to look into their complaints.
But that did not detract from the fact that the Commission he represents faces an imminent crisis of confidence from these voters unless something drastic is done urgently to convince them that there is no plan to deny them their right to vote.
Unless the authorities fail to recognise and admit it, the fear of disenfranchisement is very real across Nigeria and expectations of voters waiting to exercise their rights to human suffrage from March 28.
While INEC has done well, so far, to address the lapses that had led to extensions in the deadline for the distribution of the PVCs across the country, as well as to close gaps in the percentage of cards released, it must make hay to correct the dangerous notion that some of its officials in some states may have connived with unscrupulous politicians to ensure that select groups of voters did not vote in the coming elections.
Now is the time for the Commission to prove to Nigerians that its feat in the 2011 elections was no fluke.
As an umpire, INEC must prove its neutrality and commitment to preparing the ground for the Nigeria of the future: a strong, united and progressive country that unborn generations of Nigerians will be proud of.
The Commission must understand that the much-desired change and the future of the country rest squarely on its shoulders.(Punch)
