The campaign season for the 2023 elections in Nigeria isn’t even in full gear yet and presidential aspirant, Bola Tinubu, is already dominating the charts for the most public blunders.
The former Lagos State governor raised eyebrows in 2021 when he said he would solve unemployment with the recruitment of 50 million Nigerian youths into the Army.
That’s a force large enough to fight 10 world wars
Tinubu has also managed to call Dolapo Osinbajo, the wife of the vice president, the wife of the president and claimed Nigerian youths are “tweeting on WhatsApp”.
While these blunders are harmless, entertaining fodder for online mockery, there’s another one Tinubu keeps repeating that could have dire consequences.
Tinubu’s stubborn lie about PVCs
At a consultation meeting in January 2022, Tinubu said the permanent voter cards (PVC) that Nigerians have had expired. He said it with the confidence of a man who knew what he was talking about. He further told his supporters to go back to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register for new ones.
Unsurprisingly, it turned out that he was saying nonsense. INEC quickly announced that PVCs don’t expire. It’s probably what the “permanent” in permanent voter cards means.
Tinubu’s team immediately apologised for his blunder and that should have been the end of it. Except he’s struck again.
At a campaign event in Lagos on April 16th 2022, Tinubu asked his supporters to make sure their PVCs haven’t expired. He told them to go revalidate their cards so that they can vote in the 2023 elections.
ALSO READ: PVCs Are Coming! And New Voters Can Start Collecting Them, But…
What does INEC think?
INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, announced on April 13th 2022 that 1,126,359 out of the 2,523,458 new applications for PVC between June and December 2021 were faulty. The cleanup of the data of registrants showed that 45 out of every 100 new applications in the six-month period were invalid.
Yakubu offered two specific reasons for the trend: people who already registered but were registering for the second time and people who provided incomplete data and didn’t meet the criteria for registration.
Registering more than once, like Tinubu keeps pushing, is an electoral offence punishable by one-year imprisonment, a fine of ₦100,000 or both. This is clearly stated in Section 23 of the Electoral Act 2022.
What if I have a problem with my PVC?
INEC has provided two reasons for why such a high number of people’s PVC registrations were invalid: ignorance or deliberate attempts to cheat the system. People engaging in the latter will smell jail if convicted, but people in the former simply need education.
Listen carefully
INEC’s message is clear: you don’t have to register for a PVC if you’ve already registered before. If you’ve had problems in the past with your PVC or fingerprint recognition during accreditation in any previous election, all you need to do is revalidate. A revalidation involves visiting a registration centre to recapture your fingerprints and picture.
If your PVC is missing or defaced, your details need correction or you need to transfer your PVC location, you also don’t need to register from scratch. INEC has provided resources for solving those problems too, available on the commission’s online platform.
The registration for PVC is for Nigerians who have clocked the age of 18 years and have never registered before. PVCs don’t expire.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
If you’re not sure of your registration status, you can contact INEC’s Help Desk, social media handles or registration officers at the registration centres for guidance.
What you shouldn’t do is listen to Tinubu.
ALSO READ: Time Is Running Out for You to Register for Your PVC
