Southeast based civil rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has revealed that out of the 93.5 million registered voters much publicised by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), only 44 million are holders of the Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) while 29.5m of “the total registered voters” are found to be registered without PVCs till date.
Board Chairman of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi who disclosed this in a special Investigative Report carried out as part of the organisation’s pre-election advocacy also said the INEC voters list is polluted with 20 million ineligible identities.
“It was also our investigative finding that there still exist in the National Register of Voters estimated 20m ineligible identities among the “93.5m registered voters” being brandished or paraded by INEC. The breakdown done by Intersociety shows that the number includes estimated 8m underage children, drawn mostly from Muslim underage children captured by INEC as “PVC-registered voters” in 2015, 2019 and 2022. There are also not less than 2m illegal migrants mostly alien Muslims included and “nigerianized” in the Voters’ List dating back since 2015.
“In the National Register of Voters, too, are found estimated 4m fake or fictitious names bearing both Nigerian and non Nigerian Christian and Muslim names as well as estimated 6m stolen identities or stolen and diverted PVCs belonging to genuinely registered voters but stolen or diverted from INEC custody by criminal politicians and INEC officials till date.
“Intersociety has therefore identified Nigeria’s Voters List as the dirtiest and most polluted Voters List in the world. Nigeria’s Voters list also contains the most compromised personal identity data in the whole democratic world”
Not done yet with its startling revelations, Intersociety also said that its investigative findings revealed that out of the estimated 44m PVC holders as it stands, estimated 10m have compromised their Permanent Voters’ Cards and Voters Identification Numbers or VINs.
“Apart from the leadership of the Coalition of the Registered Opposition Political Parties in Nigeria (CUPP) which exposed the above at its press conference of 21st Nov 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), through its National Commissioner for FCT, Plateau, Nasarawa and Kaduna, Mohammed Haruna, had on Monday, 12th Dec 2022, confirmed the CUPP’s allegation, saying that “some politicians have been buying up Permanent Voters Cards and financially inducing unsuspecting voters to harvest their Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) ahead of the 2023 general elections”.
“The leadership of CUPP had at its press conference disclosed that “over 10m PVCs and their VINs have been harvested by political players at the country’s ruling APC in at least 22 States using different phony charities and names and have also harvested over 10m bank accounts of the owners of the compromised over 10m PVCs”.
“Though, INEC has joined in raising the alarm, but by law and convention, INEC is inescapably culpable by way of both direct and vicarious liabilities” the group said.
Credit: Daily Sun