ISSUES WITH PVC: If Machine Is Unable To Read Your Card, You Are Not Disenfranchised— Prof. Yakubu, INEC Boss

Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)


As the 2019 general elections inch closer, palpable anxiety persists in many quarters about the credibility of the polls to be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Of particular concern is the recurring question bordering on the often reported difficulties in obtaining and using the Permanent Voter’s Card, PVC.

It is a concern which the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, and his team have been compelled to address, especially while responding to repeated questions pertaining to the Commission’s readiness and capability to conduct free and fair elections in the country. 

Against this backdrop, Sunday Vanguard recently visited some PVC distribution centres in Oyo, Lagos and Ogun states. Indeed, the visits revealed that apart from having difficulties procuring the PVCs, many are also ignorant about what the use of the PVCs entails before and during elections. For instance, one Mr Adeoyo Fidelis, who resides in Ibadan and works in Lagos where he registered for the elections, has had a bitter story to tell procuring his PVC.

 In the light of his inability to get the PVC, he had gone ahead to re-register in Ibadan believing it would be easier to get it there. 

Unknown to him, since his finger print had earlier been captured, his new registration was automatically voided. 

A finger print analyst Mr Paul Olufemi who served in the finger print department in the Central Criminal Registry, CCR, Alagbon, Lagos, believes that this applies to many who may still be going around in search of PVC. For Madam Adedeji Temiloluwa, who once lived at Ketu Alapere but relocated to Ikorodu in 2011, it was a harrowing experience collecting her PVC. 

In the process of trying to register, she visited an Ikorodu centre for weeks, leaving her home every day by 5am for the centre but each day the story was the same: her number was nowhere near being attended to out of several people with same problem as the machines could only capture 100 daily. 

Her agony only ended after a sympathetic neighbour who was close to the end of the queue allowed her to be attended to. But her relief was short-lived as it turned out that though the PVC has her features, it had the name of another person, hence her registration was voided.  

Furore over PVC collection in Ekiti 

Incidentally, the stated challenges are already playing out just before the July 14 Ekiti State governorship election. Indeed, there are reports of thousands of potential voters besieging the Ado- Ekiti office of INEC to demand for their PVCs. 

Some of these individuals had while speaking with news men expressed frustration at not being able to procure the cards after several visits to the INEC office and accused officials of the electoral body of selling the cards to politicians.

 A visibly angry Sola Akindele from Oye-Ekiti who said he transferred his card to Ado-Ekiti, was quoted as informing thus: “Last week I was here for the PVCs; they asked me to come on Monday which is today and have been coming but we can’t get the cards. 

This is my right and I must get the card to vote. I transferred from my town, Oye, to Ado. We are ready to vote but our INEC is denying us this right.” 

Another aggrieved registrant, Adewale Adekola, said: “I have been coming here from Ureje for the past four months. I use N300 for transport fares on daily basis.   

I arrived here since 7am and we have been waiting; this is almost 11 am. They have always been asking me to come back. “It does appear that they have sold our cards. They are even using the police to harass, but we won’t accept this”. 

PVCs cannot be sold- INEC 

But reacting to the allegations, the INEC spokesman in the state, Taiwo Gbadegesin, dismissed the claims of the sale of the cards. 

He explained thus: “The allegation that we have sold PVCs can’t be true because there is no way it is possible for someone to use another person’s PVC. No one can collect the cards by proxy. It is just some of the unfair criticisms we get from the members of the public”. 

Allegation to rig Ekiti election 


Apart from that, INEC officials have also been called to react to certain allegations attributed to the state governor, Ayodele Fayose, chief of which is that INEC is planning to rig the July 14 Ekiti Governorship Election. In a release signed by Rotimi L. Oyekanmi, Chief Press Secretary, to the Chairman of INEC, the Commission has posited thus: “We wish to state unequivocally that the allegations are untrue and baseless. The Commission has since November 2015 successfully conducted elections into 180 constituencies. 

These include five governorship elections carried out in Kogi, Bayelsa, Edo, Ondo and Anambra states. So far, nobody has accused the Commission of rigging any of these elections. All of the election results recorded so far testify to INEC’s ability to ensure that only the voters determine who wins an election. 

“We wish to emphasize that it is impossible for the Commission’s officials, any individual or group for that matter to pre-load the Smart Card Readers, SCRs, or provide ballot papers for stuffing as alleged. Indeed, the SCRs which perform the three functions of identifying, verifying and authenticating the voter and the Permanent Voter’s Card, PVC, can only function on the election day”.  

Crisis of PVC collection, others: INEC Chairman explains

 Incidentally the difficulties procuring the PVCs and other issues capable of undermining the Ekiti State election and the general elections next year were expressly addressed by the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, during a session with some journalists in Lagos. Reacting to a question on the reported challenges in getting the PVCs, he had explained thus: “It is not getting the PVCs that comes first, it is registration, availability of the PVCs and the collection of the PVCs. 

There are two dimensions to this issue. First is the ongoing continuous voters registration exercise and then there are the uncollected PVCs from the past exercise, particularly the 2015 exercise.

 “We have told the nation that we have a little over seven million uncollected PVCs from the 2015 general election. We have also given the breakdown of the uncollected PVCs on state by state basis of which Lagos has the highest with 1.4 million. 

The commission has consistently operated the policy of collection of PVCs and not distribution of PVCs. If we are to distribute, in no time there will be no PVCs, but we have placed emphasis on the registrants to collect their PVCs. “As at the 14th   of June, a little over 500,000 PVCs have been collected. 

But let me say categorically that the commission is not planning to burn the uncollected PVCs as there was a report attributed to one of our Resident Electoral Commissioners that the commission is intending to burn the PVCs. They are available for collection until close to the General Election. 

“We have tried a number of mechanisms to ensure the collection of the PVCs. Like in Lagos before the last local government elections we collaborated with the State Independent Electoral Commission and our staff carried the PVCs from location to location; yet the rate of collection is still very low. 

“Also, the law says that INEC should register Nigerians as they turn 18 on a continuous basis. Also, it affords Nigerians the opportunity to replace lost, damaged or defaced PVCs and allow Nigerians the opportunity to transfer their registration. 

The law says you can only vote where you are registered. But the law makes provision for transfer and relocation. So we have been providing the opportunity for this and the total number of transfers that we have received as of the 14th   of June is a little over 400,000 and the requests that we have received for replacements of PVCs is a little over 700,000.

 “For the first time in our electoral history we are doing the Continuous Voter Registration Exercise as envisaged in the Electoral Act. 
We started on the 27th   of April last year and as at 14th   of June this year, we have registered 9,700,999 Nigerians. 

These are new registrants and if you add this to the about 70 million already registered voters you will end up with about 80 million registered voters in Nigeria. “We are planning the next General Election on the basis of a voter register of over 80 million Nigerians. 

These are the figures as at the 14th   of June, 2018 and let me say this that the exercise is ongoing and by the time we do the back end processes that the figures may go lower because these are pre-AFIS (Automated Fingerprints Identification System) figures.

 “We have printed the cards for all those who registered in 2017 and added these to the number of uncollected PVCs from 2015 but instructed the Resident Electoral Commissioners to keep separate records. Understandably, because the 2017 was more recent, we have had higher uncollected rates for those cards than those from the 2015 exercise”. 

Use of card readers: South versus North 

The INEC boss was also taken to task over allegation that while voters in the Southern part of the country vote with card readers, that was not the case in the North. 

Expressing surprise at the allegation, he had informed thus: “As part of our openness we made available to Nigerians statistics from the smart card reader for the 2015 presidential election. 

Each smart card reader stores information based on the PVCs, so we are able to know how many people voted and we are able to dis-aggregate the data and we have provided the information. “The smart card reader performs three functions. 

One, it confirms that the card is from INEC, not cloned because the machine cannot read a card not issued by INEC. 

Two, it confirms that the person who presents the PVC is the actual owner of that card because once the card is inserted in the smart card reader, your picture shows, your personal details show, name, date of birth and then we cross check the information on the manual register at the polling unit.

 “In addition, the smart card reader authenticates. By that we mean, it confirms your biometrics. People can look alike facially, can share the same address, share the same date of birth, but the only thing that distinguishes you from any other person is your biometrics. 

So, it confirms that you are the actual owner of the card. Given our previous history of multiple voting, dubious voting and all that, so the smart card reader checks that. 

“However, if the smart card reader is unable to read your biometrics, we have the incidence form. The incidence form is supposed to be a further guarantee that the person whose card was read by the machine is the actual owner of the card. 

But if the machine is unable to read the card, you are not disenfranchised, you are given the incidence form”. “From all the 180 elections we have conducted since 2015, we realised that we had issue with the incidence form. We have now slightly redesigned the voters register and we are going to deploy this in Ekiti. 

There is now a column for incidence instead of a form. If the machine is unable to read the biometrics of the voter, the presiding officer simply ticks off and this will also enable us to have a superior turn around time for voters when they go to vote. 

So instead of people waiting for them to fill the form, the presiding officer simply tick off”. 

Underage voting 

Responding to a question about underage voting which some claim was a serious issue during the local government elections in Kano State, he said: “It was here in Lagos in February that I responded to the issue of underage voting after the Kano local government elections. There are two election management bodies in the constitution; INEC conducts national elections but INEC is the registrar and regulator of political parties and by the same token, INEC is the only body supposed to register voters.

 “So, we provide the voters register to the states for the local government elections, but we have no responsibility over the conduct of local government elections.

 In Kano before the local government elections we had bye elections in a state constituency and in that election there was no single incident of under-aged voting in that election conducted by INEC.

 “Except for the integrity of the entire process, that shouldn’t necessarily bother me; we have a forum of election management bodies which is purely advisory. But we are interested because part of the allegations is that under aged persons voted using the INEC voters register. 

So we investigated and the committee has conducted its investigations, submitted its report and we found no connection between the INEC voters register and under aged voting in Kano. 

“In fact, in virtually all the polling units they did not even use the voters register to accredit anyone. But these are outside the responsibilities of the commission and I assure you that we will soon release the full report of that investigation.

 “The INEC voters register is the largest data base of citizens in this country. It is a national treasure and as we speak, 70 million and soon to be 80 million, complete with finger prints and photographs, telephone numbers and addresses of citizens; this is the best voters register we have ever had. 

You know there used to be fresh voters registration for every election, but that has stopped and what we now have is continuous voters registration. So, we need to continue to strengthen the voters register. “The law provides for the cleaning up of the voters register and this is a collective national responsibility. 

We paste the register nationwide for claims and objections. Nigerians should go and see the register if there are ineligible persons as provided for in Section 12(1) of the Electoral Act. We will remove their names and clean up the register. “As we speak not a single Nigerian has officially complained to INEC about the prevalence of ineligible persons on the voter register. 

The law also requires the commission to make available to each registered political party, a copy of the list of names registered in the previous 60 days into each year. So, for all those we registered in 2017, we have made available the list to each of the 68 political parties in Nigeria in February this year.

 Each political party in Nigeria has a copy of the voter register and as we speak the commission has not received a single complaint of the registration of ineligible persons.

 “In Ekiti, we have made available a copy of the voter register to be used in that election to each of the 35 political parties contesting the election.
 As we speak, we have not received a single complaint from any party. “We have also done something that has never been done in our democracy. 

As we speak the entire voter register is online. You can now check the status of your registration online; you can now check the status of your registration online. 

Any citizen can check it at www.inecnigeria.org and follow the prompts. “It may interest you to know that the largest majority of those who voted in the 2015 General Elections belong to the category of Nigerians who described their professions as farmers and fishermen. 

Complaint of payment before registration On the recurring allegation of people being made to pay some INEC staff before they are registered, the INEC boss responded this way: “I want to say that registration, production and collection of PVC is free and inalienable. 

So, if anybody is collecting money from any citizen, please draw our attention to it and we will deal with it. It is free. Under the law, nobody should pay one kobo for the service that we render for our democracy”.

 Cross border registration of voters 

Another issue of concern which Yakubu felt compelled to address is the allegation of people coming from across the country’s borders to register and vote. 

In his response, he said: “Voting is only meant for Nigerians. 

Non-Nigerians cannot vote under the law. But we have had some feelers of non-Nigerians being registered to vote in our elections. I think the answer may be found in our statistics.

 A few weeks ago, somebody told me that he read the claim of about two Million Nigeriens being registered to vote in Nigeria. “If that were the case, these would have been reflected in the voters register for the states that share border with Niger Republic, mainly the states in the North West.

 But as you can see from the figures for new registrants by geopolitical zones, the North West is actually not higher than number four out of the six. The total number of new registrants in the zone is 1.5 million short of the two million!”













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