You Have Not Done Your Job, Fashola Tells INEC Team From Abuja

…Says it’s not a personal issue but about the right of every registered voter in Lagos to get their PVC as Jega’s team visits to apologise to Governor

Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, SAN on Tuesday hosted a team from the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who came to apologise to him on the shoddy distribution of Permanent Voters Card in the State, saying the issue is not about him personally, but about ensuring that every registered voter in Lagos gets their PVC.

The Governor who spoke at the Lagos House, Ikeja when he received the team which comprised of a National Commissioner, State Commissioner, head of ICT and Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman said until he gets his PVC and other registered voters get theirs, INEC has not done its job.

The Governor, who noted the explanation offered by the team from the INEC headquarters, said on a daily basis receives complaints from the residents of Lagos about the shortcomings of INEC on the exercise. “Let me make it clear that this is not personal and it is about our country. The right of citizens, it is about our image as a people and it is about our prosperity. Whether we get electricity, whether we get water, whether we are able to be secured, whether our children have a future depends on what government does”, Fashola said.

According to the Governor, there was in the public domain a persisting fear about the credibility of the electoral process which is not being helped by the tardiness of INEC thus far. “Government will not be formed unless elections are held. It is only credible elections that respond to the will of the people. The worry out there is that people still need to be persuaded that their votes will count. So whether you like it or not or whether INEC likes it or not, it is a credibility issue about electoral processes and we must therefore act all the time to reinforce that credibility rather than diminish it”, he said.

The Governor noted that while the team can come out and make explanations to him as a person on what went wrong, it’s difficult to determine how many people they make similar explanations to  because there are thousands and millions of them that are experiencing what he as the Governor has experienced.

According to the Governor, Lagos State has been ready for the exercise since July when INEC first indicated that it was ready but has kept shifting the goal post. “You moved it to August, then you moved it to September, then November and you broke it into two and we on our part have continued to adjust and adapt and we have spent money getting the information across and moving people to provide support”, he said.

Governor Fashola said the feedback that the State Government is getting across the State from the exercise is that there is no power, the generator has broken down or that there is no fuel and that the Commission is doing twice what it should have done once.

“When we shut down Lagos for one day in order to allow people to go out and vote. Mind you, this is 35 percent of the GDP of Nigeria and I hope that we all understand what that means? So when we do that and we still get this kind of service, we ask ourselves: Are you for real?”, the Governor said.

While reassuring that he would continue to fulfill his responsibility as a political leader by encouraging people to continue the registration process, Governor Fashola noted that there was a need for those responsible to clarify to him as a person who had been voting since he turned 20 while he must subject himself to a fresh round of data collection.

He maintained that he has been voting since he turned 20 and that somewhere in the INEC system his name is there, adding that it is not his job to find his name but the job of the INEC officials to find the data.

“You gave me a temporary voters’ card, where did you print it from? Go and print my permanent voters’ card from there”, he said.

Governor Fashola said he is going to urge citizens who have not registered to go out and do so but that as a citizen he has some personal issues which INEC must bring clarity.

He said as a Governor, he would not abdicate his leadership role to support government institutions to carry out their responsibilities but that as a citizen too, his concerns must be addressed on why there are always issues with organizing elections which are seamlessly conducted elsewhere.

The Governor who informed that during a recent trip outside the shores of Nigeria, he took time to visit the Indian Electoral Commission headquarters and he was intimated with the different workings of the organization which organizes elections for about 800 million Indians.

He said he learnt that the Indian system makes voters registration very seamless, less cumbersome and cheaper than it is being done in Nigeria because on a yearly basis a specific period of time is devoted to updating the register without having to tell people to continually re- register every four years.

He stated that one innovation in the Indian system as it concerns bringing new entries of young pupils who have clocked age 18 into the voters register is that the forms are administered through the class teachers who also authenticates the age quoted by the students thereby eliminating incidences of underage registration.

He charged the electoral umpire to ensure that whatever they choose to do is done well, adding that if Nigerians are determined to overcome the present challenge, they can and that if it is about finding solutions, he would be more interested. Earlier, the National Commissioner from INEC who led the team, Ambassador Lawrence Nwurukwu said the INEC was taken aback and worried that the Governor could not obtain his PVC on demand. While apologizing to the Governor for the shortcoming, Ambassador Nwurukwu said Lagos is not the first place where a similar problem would occur but has happened in several other places.

While appealing to the Governor and others affected to please go and re- register, the INEC Federal Commissioner gave a commitment that before the middle of December, the problem would be resolved and that INEC would make necessary amends.

Also speaking, the director of ICT, Engineer Chudi Nwafor attributed the loss of some of the data captured to the loss of fingerprints of the captured voters  during the upgrading process.

The Governor was joined by some members of the State Executive Council including the Commissioners for Science and Technology, Mr Adebiyi Mabadeje and Information and Strategy, Mr Lateef Ibirogba as well Physical Planning and Urban Development, Tpl. Toyin Ayinde while others on the INEC team include Resident Electoral Commissioner in Lagos State, Dr Adekunle Ogunmola, Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr Kayode Idowu and Administrative Secretary, INEC, Lagos, Mr Isaac Itegboje.

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