It’s no longer news that Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi are the respective presidential candidates of Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party. All Progressives Congress’candidate is work-in-progress as of the time of this piece.
Anyone, who has experienced the anguish that visited Nigeria upon the advent of PDP and APC unto Nigeria’s political state should urgently go and obtain his Permanent Voter’s Card.
Section 24(d) of Nigeria’s Constitution requires Nigerian citizens to “make positive and useful contribution to the advancement, progress and well-being of the community where he resides.”
Voting is probably the most fundamental responsibility that a patriotic citizen of any democratic society can discharge in the interest of his community, family, himself and his compatriots.
Your part of Nigeria’s democratic deal is to vote and ensure that your vote is counted. Anything short of that is unpatriotic if you have achieved the majority age of 18. To help you, the Independent National Electoral Commission has announced a voters’ registration and revalidation plan.
Sections 78 and 118 of Nigeria’s Constitution empower INEC as follows: “The registration of voters and the conduct of the elections shall be subject to the direction and supervision of the Independent National Electoral Commission.”
While the online version of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise ended May 30, 2022, the physical registration is still possible till June 30, 2022. Delay no more.
Note that Section 12(1) of the Electoral Act provides that “A person shall be qualified to be registered as a voter if such person: is a citizen of Nigeria; has attained the age of 18 years.”
Other conditions are that such a person “Is ordinarily resident, works in, originates from the Local Government Area Council or Ward covered by the registration centre; presents himself to the registration officers of the Commission; and is not subject to any legal incapacity to vote under any law, rule or force in Nigeria.”
The failure of some INEC officials to report in their offices, especially in some South-East states, has set some Nigerians thinking that maybe someone wants to disenfranchise them from participating in the 2023 general election.
INEC needs to urgently address this development, to correct the insinuations in some quarters that there is a plan to disenfranchise voters in some regions of Nigeria by making PVCS unavailable to them.
Coalition for Peter Obi, a public action committee for presidential candidate Peter Obi of Labour Party, sensing that INEC may not be able to cope with the demands of the registration before the election commences, is asking INEC to extend the registration period.
Maybe INEC should take that counsel. After all, it is conducting what it calls a continuous voter registration. The more citizens that can be dragged into the voters’ dragnet, the more democracy shall be served.
Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, INEC Chairman, has announced INEC Election Regulations and Guidelines for the 2023 General Elections. This has to do with “logistics, training, voter education, technology, sensitisation against vote-buying, inclusivity measures, and, above all, security.”
Some salient details of the Regulations and Guidelines are: Voter verification will be done with BVAS, or Bimodal Voter accreditation System, another name for biometric verification; voters, returning officers and collation officers shall not use telephone or recording devices at the polling unit.
Other guidelines are that: Voting results will be transmitted electronically, a contentious issue, and, for health reasons in these days of COVID-19 pandemic, everyone at the polling unit will be expected to wear a face (nose) mask.
If you listen to those who say there will be no elections in 2023, and fail to register as a voter, you run the risk of holding the wrong end of the democratic stick while the naysayers go ahead to register and vote for the knaves who will further mess up the Nigerian system.
Ahead of the 1999 general election, many, who were disillusioned by the criminal annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, believed to have been won by Bashorun MKO Abiola, by the regime of military President Ibrahim Babangida, vowed that they wouldn’t vote.
That became a tactical error on their part. Because, in the end, charlatan politicians showed up and got voted into high political offices, while many of those who fought against military rule became outsiders in Nigeria’s political scheme of things.
They have never gotten a chance to contribute their talent and good character to good governance in Nigeria. And there is no doubt, as you can see, that the people of Nigeria are generally the worst for the willful negligence by the good.
Following is a message from the Greek philosopher, Socrates, for those who refuse to register and vote: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being ruled by your inferiors.”
Those so-called conscientious dissenters who swear that they will not collect the PVC because they think the 2023 general elections will be compromised anyway, should please go and register, and take their political and existential fate in their own hands.
This is because of the submission of logicians who posits that not to decide is to decide. If you do not vote, you allow those who do to choose your political leaders, because your vote, and the votes of other dissenters like you, will be lost.
The youths, under 30s, said to be at least 65 per cent of Nigeria’s population, many of whom were in the #EndSARS frontlines that reportedly lost many of its members at Lekki Tollgate in 2020, must do themselves the favour of registering for and collecting their PVCs.
Anything short of collecting their PVC is more than a class suicide, a generational suicide. The effect of which is as if they never existed. The Yoruba say when you are not present at the conference table, you cannot contribute to the discussion.
INEC has announced the 2023 General Election Timetable, which kicked off on February 28, 2022. Accordingly, political parties have concluded the state congresses and national conventions to pick their candidates for legislative and executive branch offices.
The next step is the submission of nomination forms by political parties to INEC, publication of final list of candidates by INEC, completion of vettings of party electoral officials before electioneering campaigns commence from September 28, 2022.
It is expected that the elections will start on February 25, 2023 ahead of the swearing-in of the president and state governors on May 29, 2023, after which the president and the governors will inaugurate the legislative houses hopefully by early June 2023.
So the coast is clear for Nigerians to exercise their rights as guaranteed by the principle of universal adult suffrage that is supported by the United Nations Charter on Fundamental Human Rights and Nigeria’s Constitution.
This right promotes democracy that American President Abraham Lincoln defines as the government of the people, by the people and for the people. Its greatest hallmark is representation enabled by regular voting by constituents.
Those of you who do not like PDP, APC, or even LP and Social Democratic Party, now is the time and opportunity to register your preference for any of the other political parties.
You cannot continue to whine while boasting that you have the numbers. Sign up now and vote, be the difference or the change that you want.
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