­Your PVC is weapon of mass destruction

This is the third time that I have written on this same enormous power of that small voter card called PVC. I have had to return to this same subject at this time because in the next five weeks we will certainly face the consequences of our electoral choices. After the election, we may return to reading from another book of lamentation. We may have been complaining about the 16 years that the locusts ate through the PDP from 1999-2015. We may be lamenting at the moment that the last eight years under the ruling APC have been unspeakably harrowing.

We may have been wondering why democracy hasn’t delivered much good to us other than some form of freedom in the last 24 years. We can justifiably claim that democracy has become less participatory in the last 24 years with poor voter turn out even in off-season elections. This isn’t a time for questions. It is indeed a time for action and reflection. It is a time to look out for our voter cards and where we can vote if we want democracy to work for our common good. Lest we forget, this is not a time to ask why a section of the country isn’t lamenting over collection of PVCs while a section is agonising over difficulties in registering and collections. We may not want to ask now why political leaders and politicians in the southern part aren’t mobilising people to register to vote and keep their cards for elections.

It isn’t a time yet to deconstruct the power of the North in organising their people to register and collect their cards in good time. And so before we rush to the media in late March after the elections to shake the tables about how the colonial masters mysteriously handed Nigeria over to the North through ‘manipulated’ population figure and allied matters, let the people heed the assurances of the (new) INEC that next month’s and March elections will be conducted with BVAS and the results will be electronically transmitted and the processes will be somewhat transparently participatory.

Let us defeat the congenital election riggers who have brought reproach to our country through rigged leadership recruitment processes. Let us defeat these principalities and powers, vote buyers by first conquering voter apathy. It isn’t indeed a time for lamentation in the media. It is a time for participation. Please, don’t sell your PVC. It is evil and note that the buyers in your area know that they just want to kill support for your preferred candidates. They can’t use your PVC to vote. Let’s consider the following data to encourage ourselves to action on the power that PVCs can give or lose.

Whopping 6.7 million PVCs were not collected across 17 states and the nation’s capital as of January 4, 2023. With about five weeks before the presidential/National Assembly ballots on February 25, this is a huge figure. As of December 29, an estimated 1,693,963 PVCs remained uncollected in Lagos State alone. PVC collection is suffering a similar fate in other states. It is gratifying to know that some people are even paying to collect theirs at the moment to defeat self-disenfranchisement. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) opened the collection windows on December 12. That exercise will be rounded off now on January 29. As INEC has been reiterating, any registrant without a PVC will not be allowed to vote in the 2023 polls, as only the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) will be used.

For 2023, INEC’s register contains 93.4 million names, up from the 82.3 million in 2019. Many did not collect their PVCs then. The outcome was that just 28.6 million or 35 per cent voted in the 2019 presidential election. Interpretation: The percentage (35%) means that the 2019 winner of the presidential election was not truly representative of the whole voters.

Researchers have established that apart from Zimbabwe’s 1996 presidential ballot that recorded a voter turnout of 32.3 per cent, Nigeria’s 2019 presidential election is the second lowest in recent elections in Africa. This trend trumped the recent off-season National Assembly and Governorship elections. Among others, the Lagos East senatorial election scored a turnout of 10 per cent in 2020.

This dismal trend was also at play in the governorship ballot in Edo State in 2020, which recorded a turnout of 24.22 per cent; the Ondo governorship polls (2020) had 31.6 per cent voter turnout; Anambra in November 2021 recorded 10.38 per cent; Ekiti State in June 2022 had 36.5 per cent; and Osun State in July 2022 recorded 42.16 per cent. This is tainting democracy in Nigeria where voter apathy has taken steam out of popular participation.

That is why as I have done twice here, would like to join concerned citizens in encouraging the young ones, who are angry with the present ruling class and the power elite in the country to organise instead of agonising. I have been reading some views of some young Nigerians who daily organise and haul insults at some elders who dare to accuse them of emptiness and lack of organisational ability in their quest for change. Therefore, I would like to appeal to the angry elders on the need to spare our rods against the youth at this time for some specific reasons. 

One, I believe that the youth too have been remarkably inspired by so many unethical behaviours they have found in us, (their elders). There are the young ones who have found wealth without work in numerous parents and relations. As I have also noted here in the same construct, not a few young students are aware they did not pass their post-primary final examinations used for dubious admissions into some universities and polytechnics. They know the elders who arranged their admissions. They know how much some parents paid for their dissertations too. Some old lawyers have been caught while helping some young lawyers to sit for final Bar Examinations. 

In this country where we condemn the young ones for too many unethical behaviours, there are so many elders and even unethical professors who have incredibly assisted candidates to enroll for doctoral degrees and arranged theses to be artfully ‘defended’ in some strange universities.  Many young ones and wards of political leaders know how much their fathers paid some unethical senior ministers in the temple of justice (lawyers) to settle judges for even gubernatorial mandates. I know so many (retired) directors and permanent secretaries who knew about how much some colleagues paid some cabals in the federal bureaucracy to pass promotion examinations to be directors and permanent secretaries. They know us. It is curious therefore, how we expect them to be better than us, ethically. It is hypocritical too to expect them to prepare to take over and do better when we too have failed to organise significant succession arrangements on our various beats. 

Instead of castigating our young ones as ‘efulefu’ (worthless), therefore, we should advise them to come out of the social media cocoon, and fight to collect their voter cards since they have registered. We need to tell them about the power they have to change their present condition through their PVCs. The young unemployed graduates need to know that poor and clueless political leadership that enhances poverty in the land begins with election processes. And the only specific exercise that can change that is participation in the processes. They also need to know that the powers that have held Nigeria down, stunted our growth would not want to encourage them to vote. They know how they have been winning elections without votes. That is why they don’t want BVAS and its concomitant gains.  

This is a time to mobilise all the good people of Nigeria who have not been spoilt by the sustainable prejudices – to adopt many young Nigerians into collecting data, yes, facts and figures about this country that needs urgent redemption songs. This is a time to know that social media noises don’t deliver victory to preferred candidates.

That is again why the youth should come out of their shell, collect their ‘weapons of mass destruction’ called PVCs to vote out all these workers of iniquity including most of the audacious scoundrels in the nation’s parliament. It isn’t only the presidential and governorship elections that matter. The most important institution in any democracy is the parliament. That is where the power to check executive rascality and excesses reside. That is where the treasury can be safeguarded for the common good.

We shouldn’t have a mindset that it won’t be easy to displace a ruthless political class in a country whose oil(y) corporation has produced so many wealthy men without work. We should believe that it is possible to overthrow them through a free and fair election. The clarion call is: don’t be afraid of their ‘war chest’ (their big election budget). Your PVCs, which are more powerful, shall make a way for us. We need to heed the warning of the United States former President Barack Obama that “elections have consequences’.

I believe we should organise ourselves to deepen our understanding of what the alternative political actors are repeating daily that Nigeria can indeed be a significant world power if we are rightly led. We need to emphasise to the youth in Nigeria that Nigeria is the only glimmer of hope of the black race as legendary Madiba surprisingly noted before he flew away.

But the young and good but complacent people should note that unless we get involved in the political recruitment process, Nigeria will forever remain a reference point in teaching and sermonising on potentiality. This is not a time to denounce the country and its electoral processes that have discouraged millions. This is why the locusts always return to loot our future. 

Therefore, here is the real thing: those who have not obtained their permanent voter cards after registering should stop complaining: They should obtain their PVCs today as the BOMBS we need next month to blast these wicked rulers we call leaders out of power. 

But what we should wear as a badge of honour from this week is the nugget below, which trended across platforms in June last year. God bless the author I don’t know.

“Your PVC is not just a means of identity to open new bank account. It is actually a priceless weapon that you must use to fight for your life. Therefore, create time to visit the INEC office in your location, register and collect your card. Hurry now, obtain your PVC today and begin to see it as a powerful tool that must be used. If you are too busy to register or too big to vote, just remember that you are not too big to be ruled by thugs…” This is what we should cast on a marble at home from today. Let’s stop agonising. Let’s organise and note that there are no polling stations on Twitter Facebook, Tik-Tok, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc…