SAN FRANCISCO, February 02, (THEWILL) – A human rights media group, Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA]), has described the extension of the deadline for the collection of Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) till February 8 as a sign of the ruthless incompetence, inefficiency and the panicky nature of the Professor Attahiru Jega-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) since coming into office in 2010.
The Rights group also carpeted the relevant committees in the National Assembly for failing to provide comprehensive and patriotic oversight on INEC since after the 2011 election and stated that the electoral body has no reason not to have worked out how to ensure a seamless PVC distribution across board to potential voters in Nigeria since it has more than enough time since the last elections but chose to wait till the eleventh hour.
HURIWA said it had last year called on President Goodluck Jonathan to send a letter to the National Assembly sweeping away the hierarchy of the INEC for incompetence and plots to endanger national security through poor voter’s cards registration but its calls were not accepted by the Federal Government .
HURIWA in a statement jointly signed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, said it was incomprehensible that the hierarchy of the nation’s electoral panel headed by an erstwhile University administrator often left strategic pre-election programmes unattended to for no clear reasons until the very last weeks and days to the actual conduct of general elections.
The group wondered why the National Assembly charged with constitutional oversight powers over all national institutions including INEC has always failed to checkmate large scale inefficiency and incompetence of INEC which, according to him, is threatening Nigeria’s national security now.
According to the statement, “Recall that this same Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] under Professor Jega bungled the National Assembly’s component of the year 2011 general election when contractors reportedly awarded the juicy jobs of printing the ballot papers failed to deliver even till the eleventh hour forcing the electoral commission to annul mid-way the National Assembly polls that were in session in over ten states.
“ These failed contractors that were reportedly paid over N10 billion have yet to be prosecuted for this spectacular breach of contract. This same INEC under Professor Jega has again conducted national voters registration through the data capturing of the biometrics of prospective voters but this same project is marred by a cocktail of missing names on the voters register and the issuance of these permanent voter’s cards to many illegal foreign aliens from neighbouring countries even when millions of genuine Nigerian voters including the respected religious leader from Sokoto state Sultan and the Lagos state governor amongst many others were reportedly left out of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s data bank and therefore have yet to be issued with their cards to participate in the general elections only two weeks away.”
HURIWA also warned of the consequences of allowing the incompetent leadership style in large supply within the current INEC to disenfranchise millions of genuine voters of their constitutionally protected rights to exercise their franchise through the series of man-made hitches and spectacular incompetence of the officials of the electoral panel.
According to HURIWA, “Professor Attahiru Jega and his officials must be sternly sanctioned in accordance with the law for failing to do the needful to ensure that Nigerians willing and qualified to cast their votes at the general elections are allowed to do so without let or hindrance.
“ There is a groundswell of opinion in most parts of the country that the current leadership of INEC in deliberately scheming out majority of the voters from the Southern segment of Nigeria have only carried out the long predicted scheme to hand over political leadership to a section of the North where Professor Jega comes from.”
“The only way to prove these perceptions wrong or otherwise is for the electoral panel to ensure that faster and transparent approaches are adopted within this week to distribute the PVCs already printed by it to all Nigerians in all parts of the country.”
