DISPLACEMENT DISENFRANCHISEMENT

Congratulations to everyone who fought to defeat voter disenfranchisement by PVC manipulation. Now that we have won the battle of election postponement and PVC distribution we now have to target the next big issue of IDP Disenfranchisement. If this is not tackled, over 10 million votes will be lost, as Southerners flee from fear, threats and violence in Northern Nigeria.
There are three types of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs):
1.POLITICAL SOUTHERN IDPs: These are Southerners living in Northern Nigeria, especially Igbo traders and their families. There are over N10,000,000 of them. They are running from threats, violence and the memory of the post 2011 election violence. This is deliberately designed to deny PDP 25% of votes in Northern States and massively reduce the numbers voting for PDP. Nobody is making any arrangements for their voting elsewhere. It is part of the disenfranchisement plan because they are likely to vote for PDP and Jonathan.
2.POLITICAL NORTHERN IDPs: These are deliberately being driven from their homes in Northern Nigeria by acts of wanton violence in Christian areas in Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe and Southern Kaduna. These are aimed at reducing the 25% per State needed for winning. It has led to the massacre of thousands of people. Nobody is making special arrangements for their voting. It is part of the disenfranchisement plan because they are likely to vote for PDP and Jonathan.
3.BOKO HARAM IDPs: These have been displaced by Boko Haram in the North East and are now refugees in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa. There have been so much noise about their disenfranchisement. INEC is making effort for them to vote wherever they are. They are less than 2 million people. They are mostly Muslims and are expected to vote for APC and Buhari.
Let us get this clear. No one is planning for Christian IDPs who may vote for Jonathan but everything is being done to ensure that Muslim IDPs are able to vote. What is good for Muslims IDPs must be made good for Christians IDPs and everyone else on the move. What actions can the President and INEC take to reverse this?
There are two big issues here:
PROBLEM:
Deliberate disenfranchisement of Southerners using violence and threats and
SOLUTION:
Developing new rules and practices in INEC to allow persons who have relocated to RE-REGISTER and VOTE wherever they find themselves whether or not they are internally displaced - just like the refugees in Yobe and Borno. If people have moved and cannot go back for their PVC, they should be able to RE-REGISTER wherever they are and vote. The data is biometric and therefore cannot be a case of multiple voting.
There are four principles The President and INEC can implement to ensure universal and equitable registration for almost all voters giving every one and every Party equal opportunity before the Law.
1.REGISTER AND VOTE ANYWHERE: All voters anywhere who have not gotten their PVCs or even registered should be allowed to register and get their PVCs anywhere they are and vote.
2.OBTAIN PVCs EASILY: All the long process for obtaining PVCs is cumbersome and inefficient. We should be able to apply for PVC cards anytime, anywhere and get a quick replacement
3.CHANGE ALL PVCs: Existing PVCs have been seriously compromised and even cloned. INEC is just not safe and secure. Working with Banks, new Visa linked PVCs can be immediately produced, using VISA technology, with people going into banks to take their Biodata.
4.MOBILISE MASS INSTITUTIONAL REGISTRATION: The President should ensure that institutions join in this fight to have people register. Three institutions can ensure that everyone struggles to be registered and have PVCs in the next 6 weeks before elections as follows:
i.CENTRAL BANK AND COMMERCIAL BANKS: To give instructions that customers must show the voters card before they can benefit from bank transactions until after the elections;
ii.RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS: Worshippers should show their voters cards before being allowed in to worship until after the elections.
iii.HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: Students should show their PVCs before they can attend lectures or take exams until after the elections.
Once banks, religious institutions and tertiary institutions are used to enforce this mobilization, persons who have voluntarily handed their PVC’s to agents of PDP or APC will be forced to retrieve them. INEC will suffer the burden of ensuring that its staff that collaborated with APC or PDP to hoard or destroy PVC’s must retrieve them or report losses for recovery or replacement to the real owners. Anyone who reports loss of their PVC should be able to have a new replacement.
However, this is based on the Jega type of archaic, unwieldy low technology system. The Jega thinking in INEC is lazy, self serving to make their own money and flies in the face of modern technology. We are proposing a more radical modern and safer approach.



CENTRAL BANK AND BANKS:
The Central Bank of Nigeria and Commercial Banks have a crucial role to play. The Federal Government as a matter of national security must nullify the entire voters’ registration supervised by Prof. Jega. Existing PVCs have been seriously compromised and even cloned as discovered by the DSS. INEC is just not secure. In its stead, commercial banks should handle a new and safer process of registration like they do when they are requested by customers to produce ValuCards, MasterCards and VISACards for their customers.
The President should as a matter of urgency, summon the Central Bank, Banks and their technical partners and task them to evolve a new form of voters card that can be issued through banks.. Already, each bank has a data base of its customers hence the only challenge becomes that of duplication. As a way of resolving this logjam, relevant ICT companies can provide software that will ensure that once a customers’ biometrics is captured, it is transmitted to INEC central database that will make it impossible for one finger print and portrait to be recognized more than once.
By implementing this new PVC and registration method; all previous and new incidences of underage voters and foreigners will be eliminated as banks have established methods to deal with such criminality. This will make all cloned PVCs irrelevant and lost PVCs can be replaced easily at any bank just like lost Visa Cards. People can also register at anytime for a voters card once they attain the age. Banks cannot be compromised and this will bring down excessive numbers of voters to more realistic levels. This new PVCs can be obtained and replaced for a cost once lost just like ordinary Visa Cards. The Federal Government can pay for the initial cost of setting up so that customers only have to pay for the actual card for about N100.
All the PVC burden will be taken off INEC. As banks will make money from the exercise and also use it to open up customers accounts in the rural areas, it will be driven entirely by the profit motive ensuring that it is a benefit and not a burden on banks. Where banks do not have branch networks, community or micro finance institutions will be empowered to perform the exercise, under very strict monitoring by overseeing bank for the area, or with the Department of State Security and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corp.
VOTE ANYWHERE
Tying people to a ward is archaic and no longer makes sense. In America and the UK people can even register to vote from wherever they are by post. Here we need something more foolproof than post, using existing technology used by banks here in Nigeria and which can be rapidly adapted. Voting in Wards using INEC machines should be for those living in rural areas voting using the INEC machines. INEC just has to feed its machines with its national databases rather than ward databases so people can move freely. More sophisticated voters can vote through banks, at home or office via the internet or anywhere using their phones. Information cannot be cloned just like Visa Cards and because it is linked to a unique photo-ID, card numbers and biometric data it is unique and secure. Banks have the technology here to device and create this. If people have to run from an area in which they live and registered they can still vote in that area via internet, phone or bank. All this can be done by voters paying N100 for the benefit and without the Government carrying the entire cost.
This is very possible. It can be achieved in less than fourteen days once the banks are called together under the Central Bank and their engineers put together to solve the problem. Our voting cards can even be associated with Visa Cards making them ATM and payment instruments. Banks can achieve distribution of cards to every eligible adult in a month, that is, if people have to show their voters cards to transact business in banks. Biometric Data and Photo IDs can all be captured within banks. They have the technology and this can be good business for all the banks. Let the Government pay for those rural dwellers who cannot afford N100 for their voter cards.
DEFEATING DIENFRANCHISEMENT BY VIOLENCE
If this is achieved, the era of mass disenfranchisement will have been defeated. The threat of violence against southerners in the north and moderate Muslims is now a potent weapon used in the North to disenfranchise opponents in the areas they dominate. It can also be used by other political bullies to disenfranchise their rivals anywhere that conflict arises. Rather than get such political bullies to eschew this evil, the government can beat them to it by applying this method. It will help people who feel unsafe in a location during elections to migrate to their preferred location and still have their voting rights protected



by (Amed Madaki)

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