Hello all,

I decided to go collect my PVC yesterday, I wanted to do that and head for my office afterwards. Before leaving the house, I had checked the status of my card through the website www.govote.ng which linked me to http://voters.inecnigeria.org/ where I confirmed that my card was available and ready for collection. I had also heard in the news that the PVC collection has been decentralized and I could collect mine from the polling unit where I registered.

I got to the polling unit where I registered in 2011 (no longer at the exact spot it was 4 years ago, it has been moved by a few meters, perhaps due to lack of space) at about 9:30AM. Before getting to the place, I had observed from my car a number of people gathered around the place, I also did notice the names pasted on the wall so I knew that was the polling unit. I packed my a few meters away and then walked back to the polling unit.

On getting there I was surprised to too see a BABA Ijebu (Lagos Lotto) operator and his machine at the spot, his board was even covering some of the names pasted on the wall. There were about 12 people surrounding the Lotto man, I would classify these people as touts or hoodlums judging from the way they talked and behaved, and almost all of them were wearing APC branded T-Shirts.

I inquired from them about the ongoing PVC collection, the ones that responded told me to go to the LGA and that INEC is no longer distributing the PVC at the polling unit. Well I told them that it was in the news that people should now go to their polling unit to collect their cards. Anyways, I decided to leave for my office and check back later instead of wasting my time.

Around 2:30PM, I returned to the same place to check and Lo and behold, the INEC officials - a young man and a lady - the man was issuing cards for those that registered in 2014 while the lady issued for people that registered in 2011. The touts whom I had met earlier wearing APC branded T-shirts were also still hanging around. I observed them surreptitiously, they spoke mostly in Yoruba language and occasionally interrupted the INEC officials, I did not really know what their mission was but they interacted with the INEC agents in Yoruba language.

I was amazed at the number of uncollected cards, and the amount of time it took to attend to one person. The process appeared very inefficient. Though there were 2 INEC agents, it took each one of them between 18mins - 25mins to attend to 1 person because they had go through the stack of cards and there is no guarantee that one’s card would be found.

The period that I was there, there were about 13 of us who came to collect our cards, 9 including me had our TVC, while 4 others did not have their TVCs and were asked to fill some form. I was number 8 in the queue. Before my turn, out of the 7 people ahead of me, only 2 PVCs could be found, the other 5 were not found and the card owners were asked to go to some place to check.

On getting to my turn, the lady official of INEC took my TVC, and started checking through the stack of cards, I could observe closely that she was doing a shoddy job of it and wasn't being meticulous, after about 11 minutes of checking she handed over my TVC and told me that my card could not be found and that it might be one of the problematic cards that were not printed. I told her immediately that it could not have been true that my card was not printed because I had checked my card status and it was available. I quickly ran a fast check on my phone again using the INEC website and showed her that INEC acknowledges that my card is available and she can't deny me my card.

She maintained that my card was not available and wanted to continue attending to others, I refused to leave and I warned her that if she didn't get my card I would call INEC and report her myself. She then reluctantly started checking all over again and eventually found my card to the amazement of everyone around, she had to apologize for how she handled the issue. Because of my insistence, 2 people who had been told that there cards were not available were still around and I helped them check the status of their cards using the INEC website and the site confirmed that their cards were available and ready for collection at that polling unit. Before I left the place, the INEC official was doing a recheck of their cards again.

Although I succeeded in collecting my card, I left there feeling disappointed because of the following:
1) The huge number of cards that are yet to be collected
2) How grossly inefficient the process of PVC collection exercise is
3) The number of people whose cards are available and yet were told by INEC officials there cards were not ready
4) The nonchalant attitude of INEC's adhoc staff, I wonder how they were recruited and if they have the requisite training
5) The failure of INEC to actually do things properly with all the time they had (4 years) knowing how important this exercise is.
6) What will become of the uncollected cards before the elections
7) INEC is not creating much awareness regarding these issues on TV, Radio etc, most of the awareness created in this regard is personal effort
...and many more

I am not one of those calling for the postponement of the elections but INEC should admit their own failings and allow those with temporary cards to also vote in the elections, otherwise many people will be disenfranchised due to no fault of theirs but for INEC’s gross incompetence.

I hope to post a tread on what INEC should do to improve voter registration and efficient distribution and collection of PVCs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If you hadn't insisted on collecting your card, it might had gotten to the hands of one of those hoodlums hanging around (for a fee).

Naija I hail.

u shud no dat NLders dont lik 2read long stories,u shudv make it brief,jus d importnt point

Can't read. Make it brief.

what l observed was they are short staffed. two ppl to attend to the huge crowd.

l collected my on thusday. it was a tug of war. infact d sufferness was too much.


suffer to register ur name
suffer to collect card
suffer to vote
and suffering still continues after d voting

Interesting! I hope to collect mine in the coming days

Couldn't collect mine. After checking my status, I stopped at INEC office on my way to my polling unit and there was this man at the gate who did a Good job shouting at everyone. The gate was locked No one was allowed in to make any inquiry and when I saw a friend of mine in the building, they didn't allow her talk with me through the gate.
Eventually, I left for my pooling unit and I saw No one as at 3pm.