I support introduction of card readers, says Alatishe

WHAT do you think about the issue of PVC and readiness of INEC?
Nigerians are not sincere to themselves! We operate so much on speculations. The only people that have the true fact are the INEC. The election that brought Jonathan in 2011 was done on the platform of the TVC.

I know that there were people who were not able to collect their PVC. My wife was one of them. I have a neighbour who was not able to collect his. Several millions were not registered and nobody was talking about it that time. It was the same procedure. People that are crying woes now, they had the knowledge.

Why was it that they did not tell INEC not to conduct the election because some people registered and did not collect their PVC? How come that in 2015 and we are preparing for election and some people are crying that some have not collected their PVC? I think that we are not sincere in this country. INEC has already given us the number of PVCs that have been collected and the number of those yet to be collected. I think that common sense tells us that among those who are yet to collect theirs, some have died like my mother.

I cannot go and collect my mothers PVC. You cannot tell me that until my mother who has gone to heaven comes and collect her PVC, we cannot hold election. People are so self-centred. It is out of their own self-interest that is making them to cry loud to say INEC is not ready because millions are not yet to collect their PVCs. Not only that, there are those who registered as NYSC members. They know that if they go were they had their primary assignment to collect the PVCs, would they also return there to vote? So we should give room to those little gaps and let us go ahead and vote whoever we want to vote for.

There is controversy over the use of card readers. Where do you belong?
I support that we use it. We cannot continue to be in the stone age and expect development. We are in the era of technology. Countries that have used it before like Ghana, can attest to its success even though it was new to them then.

If we say it is new to us now, if we use it in 2019, it will also be new. So, why don’t we start using it now? If we use it now and it is not 100 percent okay, it would have shown us where to improve. It is also part of this corruption we are talking about. People are addicted to rigging. The moment INEC told them the function of the card reader, that was when they come out to say we would not use it because it is new.

I think we should allow the man to conduct the election, even if it would be the last election he would conduct for Nigeria, let us do it and whatever he did would come out in history like others before him. Whatever he does, posterity would judge him.
What is your view on the monthly environmental judgment?

That decsion to me should be considered under public policy. I do not subscribe to the belief that that two, three hours amounts to restrcting peoples movement. It has helped Lagos to be as neat as we are seeing today. If we say people should not stay back on a Saturday to clean up their environment, when are they going to do that? Not only that, it has also bring some unity in the home because most parents that would hurry out every morning and come back late in the night now stay at home every last Saturday of the month; it is an opportunity within that period for families to be united. So if I am to be the judge, I wouldn’t have come up with that decision. The judge came to that conclusion on the ground of executive proclamation. Of course, they have the right to do it.

This is a State and the States know the policy that would make them rule their boundary in a way that should be acceptable. We should not be enemy of progress in this country.

Does the restriction not violate the grund norm, which is the constitution?
To me, in considering the provisions of the constitution widely, it is not what the consitution is saying. What the constitution is saying is that you cannot come up with any law superior to the constitution. The government is saying for us to keep our environment clean, within the hour of 7 am to 10 am, everybody should stay and do so. So it also has a purpose to achieve.

If it were to be whether you like it or not within the hours of so, so time, you should not move, that would have been a different thing. But this one has an objective. For instance, these people that went to court, if they say that there will be oro (masquerade) in some parts of Lagos between the hours of 10 to 11 am, that nobody should go out, would they go out? But the purpose for it was for environmental sanitation. It was well spelt out and everybody has seen the impact I think it is out of place for anybody to go to court challenging that exercise.