The Social Democratic Party governorship candidate in Ogun State, Mr. Rotimi Paseda, has cried out to the National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakub, to order the release of his Permanent Voter Card without further delay.
Paseda, who spoke with newsmen at the party secretariat in Abeokuta on Wednesday, expressed frustrations over the non-issuance of his PVC by INEC.
He lamented that though he had applied for replacement of his PVC since August 2018, the electoral body had failed to reproduce the card barely three days to the 2019 elections in which he is a candidate.
Paseda explained that he had requested for a replacement of his PVC when he discovered that it was peeling.
He said that he approached the INEC office in Odogbolu Local Government and was attended to by an electoral officer.
The governorship candidate pointed out that INEC might end up disenfranchising him in the coming election.
He said, โThe PVC with Area code number: 27-17-14-003 and VIN: 90F5-B159- 6641- 6087-233 Paseda, Olatunde Rotimi, was used to vote during the year 2015 general elections without any complaints.
โAn electoral officer in the local government area attended to my complaint, collected the original PVC after making a photocopy of the same card and advised that I should be checking for a reprint of the card.
โTo my surprise, I have been visiting the Odogbolu area office of INEC to see how to pick my PVC since then till today.
โSurprisingly, I was told by an official in the Electoral Officerโs office that my data does not exist in the Commissionโs database.
โFor goodnessโ sake, how could a PVC used by myself, a governorship candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria during 2015 general elections and now a governorship candidate of SDP in the 2019 general elections suddenly disappear from the database of INEC?
โHow on earth does the Commission intend to wash itself clean of the allegations that it is involved in selling peopleโs PVCs?โ
