Dairy Game 9th June 226|| My Experience at INEC Office trying to get a new PVC.

It’s no news that 2027 is our next general election here in Nigeria, and the most important tool for voting is our Permanent voters card.
4years ago, I got my pvc and participated in the general elections, which went as it did. Though I like majority of Nigerians was disappointed in the result but that won’t stop me from voting again this time around.

My old voters card

The pvc I got 4 years ago needs a change so I headed to the electoral commission office at our municipal.
A friend who had gotten hers a week ago had told me to go as early as 8am, I wondered why till I got there
To my greatest surprise, there were a lot of people who had gathered to get their pvc’s both new registrations and those wanting to renew from cases of theft, loss, damage etc.

At Inec Office

The first shock I received was that they gave me a printed copy of the form and asked me to go print out 5 extra copies of the form😂😂😂. For what?? I wondered. Turns out this was their strategy to have forms they could give out to people .
I marveled at this but still complied. Wrote my name on the list and then waited.

The form for card replacement

The next issue we encountered was favoritism. A list had been called when I got there by some minutes past 9am, but then we noticed that after a while, people will enter the office or someone will take them in. My brother’s daughter, my oga’s brother, etc. After a while it became very unbearable as most of these people just arrived while there were people who had gotten there as early as 7:30am who hadn’t been attended to. These young men of course started making noise and causing trouble as it was an unfair treatment.

Once that was addressed, the next issue was that network was slow. Some people started complaining that if not for the things they want to use the pvc as an identity card to do, they wouldn’t leave their businesses to come stand and experience this level of incompetence in the system.

Remember I went to renew my card??. Around 11:30am, they announced that they would only attend to new registerations. Anyone who wanted to renew theirs should do it online.
I can, but then what about the elderly and those who don’t have access to a smart device???

• Isn't this disenfranchisement at its best???
  I hope the physical centers will be able to attend to them, because as the days draw closer to the end of this exercise, the number of requests will be overwhelming.

If you can, go get yours now as registeration officially ends on the 10th of July!