INEC, APC DENYING US PVCS IN LAGOS – IGBO YOUTHS

Igbo Youth Congress, IYC, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Lagos State of foiling Igbo’s attempt to collect their Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs because of their resolve to vote for all the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the forthcoming February elections.
At a press conference at the Trade Fair Complex, Lagos, yesterday, IYC National President, Comrade Jerry Onyemaechi Ugwu, said while the possession of the PVCs should be the right of every eligible voter, the APC, in collaboration with INEC had prevented Igbos from collecting their cards so as to disenfranchise them during the coming elections.
Ugwu said the Igbos in Amuwo-Odofin and Ojo areas were more hit by the development as the APC connives with INEC personnel to issue the PVCs to only indigenes they trust and believe to be APC members while the non-indigenes, especially Igbos were denied the cards even though they had registered in the same centres.
He said: “It is to my greatest surprise that my people could be denied of their rights in the country that belongs to all of us. I have done my findings before this conclusion. At least, when they reported to me I went to those collection centres to find out. I equally sent three different APC members who were Yoruba and they gave them PVCs while Igbo with Temporary Voter Cards, TVCs, who had the same centre code were denied.
Ugwu charged INEC to check its partisan personnel who were conniving with the APC to disenfranchise Igbo voters, stressing that it should ensure that 99 percent of eligible voters get their PVCs before the election and if not postpone it till the electorates have the cards.
He asserted that the Igbos make up 65 percent of the voters in Lagos and warned that his group would not allow its members to be disenfranchised.
The group also condemned the attacks on President Goodluck Jonathan’s convoy and rallies in Bauchi and Katsina states, describing them as attempts to ridicule the President and his office.
Buhari’s zone has collected 12.3m PVCs – APC
Meanwhile, APC candidate for Idemili North and Idemili South Federal Constituency for this month’s election, Mr. Chibuzor Obiakor, has said that unlike other zones in the country, the North-West has received the highest number of PVCs.
He spoke yesterday when over 50 pastors under the auspices of Pentecostal Fellowship Forum, Idemili zone led by their chairman, Pastor Uzor Okeke prayed for his victory in the poll.
Speaking on the low number of 4.6 million PVCs collected in the South-East, he noted that while supporters of President Jonathan in the zone were engaged in media solidarity for him, they have failed to make efforts to massively get their PVCs to qualify them for participating in the election.
According to him, figures of PVCs distribution across the zones by INEC showed that the South-West got 6.2 million; North-Central, 5.3 million; South-South, 5.5 million; North-East, 5.5 million, and North West (Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s zone), 12.3 million.
He noted that even if each of the voters in the South-East, with the least number of PVCs so far collected their cards and votes three times, the figure would still be far from the voting strength of the North-West alone.
Obiakor said it would be better for the Igbo to support Buhari and take the Senate President’s slot so that they produce the country’s President in the next dispensation “as it is zoned to the party.”
Source: Nigerian Pilot