The Abuja School of Social and Political Thought has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to look into cases of possible disenfranchisement in the permanent voter cards (PVC) collection process.
It also asked the commission to consider the distribution of PVCs as a national emergency.
The organisation’s director, Sam Amadi, said INEC has done well in taking PVC collection centres closer to citizens but there are still complaints of disenfranchisement in some areas.
‘It is time for INEC to consider the collection of voter cards as a national emergency for the 2023 elections and deploy radical measures to respond to it’, he said.
‘For example, INEC must shift its mentality to meet the challenge of students in universities and other tertiary institutions who may not have returned home to collect PVC.
‘Should the commission not be able to send their PVCs to their school addresses or aggregate these registrants and deliver to them at their current places of schooling?
‘The bottom line is that everyone should collect their PVCs so that we do not deprive any Nigerian the constitutional right to vote’.
The director further called on INEC to establish a situation room to receive real-time feedback from registrants who are finding it difficult to collect their PVCs.
