The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has said that extension of the deadline for collection of Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs), till February 8, 2015 signposts the incompetence, inefficiency and the panicky nature of the Professor Attahiru Jega-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The rights group has also carpeted the relevant committees in the Nigerian National Assembly for failing to provide comprehensive and patriotic oversight on INEC since after the 2011 election and stated that the electoral body has no reason on Earth not to have worked out how to ensure a seamless distribution across board of the permanent voter's cards to potential voters in Nigeria since it has more than enough time since the last four years but it rather chose to wait till the eleventh hour.

HURIWA said it had last year called on president Good luck Jonathan to send a letter to the National Assembly sweeping away the hierarchy of the INEC for incompetence and plots to endanger national security through poor voters’ cards registration but our calls were not accepted by the Federal Government of Nigeria but see where this same INEC has led Nigeria into panicky moments and build up of tensions all across Nigeria.

HURIWA said it was incomprehensible that the hierarchy of the nation’s electoral panel headed by an erstwhile university administrator often left strategic pre-election programs unattended to for no clear reasons until the very last weeks and days to the actual conduct of general elections and wondered why the National Assembly charged with constitutional oversight powers over all national institutions including INEC has always failed to checkmate these large scale inefficiency and incompetence of INEC that are threatening Nigeria’s national security now.

“Recall that this same Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under Professor Jega bungled the National Assembly’s component of the year 2011 general election when contractors reportedly awarded the juicy jobs of printing the ballot papers failed to deliver even till the eleventh hour forcing the electoral commission to annul mid-way the National Assembly polls that were in session in over ten states. These failed contractors that were reportedly paid over N10 billion have yet to be prosecuted for this spectacular breach of contract. This same INEC under Professor Jega has again conducted national voters registration through the data capturing of the biometrics of prospective voters but this same project is marred by a cocktail of missing names on the voters register and the issuance of these permanent voter's cards to many illegal foreign aliens from neighbouring countries even when millions of genuine Nigerian voters including the respected religious leader from Sokoto state Sultan and the Lagos state governor amongst many others were reportedly left out of the Independent National Electoral Commission's data bank and therefore have yet to be issued with their cards to participate in the general elections only two weeks away.”

HURIWA in a statement to the media and signed jointly by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, has also warned of the consequences of allowing the incompetent leadership style in large supply within the current Independent National Electoral Commission to disenfranchise millions of genuine voters of their constitutionally protected Right to exercise their democratic franchise through the series of man-made glitches and spectacular incompetence of the officials of the electoral panel.

HURIWA stated thus: “Professor Attahiru Jega and his officials must be sternly sanctioned in accordance with the law for failing to do the needful to ensure that Nigerians willing and qualified to cast their votes at the general elections are allowed to do so without let or hindrance. There is a groundswell of opinion in most parts of the country that the current leadership of INEC in deliberately scheming out majority of the voters from the Southern segment of Nigeria have only carried out the long predicted scheme to hand over political leadership to a section of the North where Professor Jega comes from. The only way to prove these perceptions wrong or otherwise is for the electoral panel to ensure that faster and transparent approaches are adopted within this week to distribute the PVCs already printed by it to all Nigerians in all parts of the country.”

•Photo shows Jega.