By Gift Olivia Samuel, The Sight News
ABUJA: As Nigeria prepares for the 2023 general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has been called upon to emplace activation mechanism on the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), so that Nigerians can begin to use the card for the major reason it was issued, which is to vote.
The Presidential Aspirant of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Adamu Garba who made this call recently in Abuja when the Executives of the INEC Press Corps paid a courtesy visit on him, emphasized that Nigerians who use the card for other statutory responsibilities other than voting, are only using INEC to achieve their personal objectives.
He urged INEC to ensure that votes count by making sure that any electronic voter card that has no history of voting becomes invalid.
According to him, “INEC can embed a chip on this electronic card, once you use it to open an account, they will check and when there is no history of voting, it becomes invalid. The voting should activate the card, similar to the way you buy your SIM card, you have to pass through a process to activate it.
“A situation where you have a voter’s card for your convenience and only use it to get your international passport, driver’s license and other statutory responsibilities, it means that you are using INEC to achieve your personal objectives, as opposed to the civic objectives that the country needs”, he said.
He also challenged Nigerians to go beyond acquiring the voters card and using it just to identify themselves, to using it to vote the right leaders into power, adding that everyone must vote, as it is a civic right.
In his words, “Somebody like me, I am aspiring for the office of the president under the Young Progressives Party (YPP), but voting is a civic right and responsibility. Anybody that refuses to vote, is indirectly causing the demages that happened to Hariri Jubril and her four children as well as Deborah Samuel, and the damages that we are having today— those women and men that were captured by terrorists in the train— those are the people you will be betraying by refusing to voting.
“So, it is not about you who live in a city, you are comfortable and you don’t care what happens, but it is about the people that are looking forward to you, your social contract with the State of Nigeria and the only way to redeem this social contract is to perform your civic responsibility by voting”, Garba remarked.
Speaking on ways to expand the Electoral Act, he said there is a need to reduce the prices of forms by political parties so that it can be on a standard where every Nigerian can participate and also, there is a need to encourage internal debate within the party system, to ensure that credible candidates emerge.
