 INEC devolves collection of PVC's up to 8,809 electoral wards as deadline draws near and Global change report indicates that political thawgrey escalating in Kano, Ekiti and other states ahead of the election. This is plus politics and I am Mary Anna Cole. As part of measures to ensure the seamless collection of permanent voters cards by registered the independent national electoral commission INEC has devolved the collection of the cards to the ward level. Before now the PVC's were only available for collection at the commission's 774 local government offices across the federation. This came after INEC raised fresh fears that the general elections would face serious threats of cancellation and postponement if security challenges across parts of the country failed to improve. However, the ward level exercise would only last between January 6th and 15th in the year 2023 after which the exercise referred to INEC local government offices. Joining us to discuss tonight is Chomai Zenwafo. She is the head of news at Kuala Lumpur's Inforpot Hackers and Shagun Shoprita is of ACT's network and is also a political analyst. Thank you so much gentlemen and lady for joining us. Great. Shagun, I'll start with you because you're a civil society. A lot of complaints have come as the time for the collection of PVC's is drawing to a close even though INEC had come up with a novel idea which is to devolve the collection of PVC's to ward levels to making it easier for people to get their PVC's. But a lot more people are saying that they might be disenfranchised because of some of the hiccups that they may have encountered while they're going to back and forth INEC offices to get their PVC's. A lot of people would say they have seen their names on the register but their PVC's are still not ready and the days are running very, very short. I'm sure that you of course have heard a lot of these complaints. And what do you think can be done before January 22, I beg your pardon? Well, I think the situation now is quite, if the reports that we hear from people, from just like anecdotal reports that you get from people's experiences, anything to go by, then I think there is some cross for concern. There is some cross to be worried which regards to the success of the collection exercise. And when we say success, according to INEC, I think we had roughly, if I'm not mistaken, about 9, 10 million new registrations. I think it was 12 and then by the time they did the cleanup, they cleaned up about 2 million out of that. So for us to say that the PVC collection has been successful, one would expect that at least 60, 70% of those people turn out to collect their PVC's. Of course, if the percentage can be higher than that, then the better. The experience that people are reporting, the reports that we're getting from people's experiences across the country has been mixed back. In the earlier periods of the collection exercise, it looked as if people were not aware. So it turned out to be very low. So you would go there and you just basically walk in and pick up the PVC. But then as time went along and Nigerians being the last minutes, people that we are, there's been a rush. And more importantly, besides the rush is there's quite a lot of confusion and INEC really needs to address this. There's quite a lot of confusion with regards to the exact location of people's PVCs. So during the registration exercise, registration happened in a variety of locations. Some people got registered at the INEC local government office at some point. Some people got registered at their polling unit at some point. Some people got registered with INEC actually going to communities to create registration centers. Now, the challenge is that having registered and having selected the polling unit you'd like to exercise your votes, knowing where your card is now, appears to be quite a bit of a challenge. And we've seen experiences and reports from different people who have gone separately. I heard somebody on, I think it was on one radio station this morning, somebody narrating how he had spent 10,000 Naira on transportation going between Abeoputa and somewhere around Ota. And even I'm really at the side of labels, 10,000 Naira in one day trying to locate his PVC and ended up still not locating it that day. In fact, I have a personal experience. My children, who I compelled, I compelled to go get registered when the registration was going on. They basically went around and had to go to about five different locations before they eventually found one of their PVCs. The first one, my son's PVC, he found it very easily based on the number on his slip. But my daughter couldn't find her and they had to go around about five different places, you know, before they eventually located it. And this experience appears to be similar for a lot of people. So INEC needs to help address the issue of how people can easily locate where their PVCs are so that they can collect them. Otherwise, some people will simply, you know, they'll simply bulk, they'll walk away and, you know, they'll get disenfranchised. So this is really a clear answer to INEC to help out. Chama, let me come to you. INEC has already released the final voter register. And I'm sure that you've seen this. And you know that Lagos is not necessarily left out of this. Lagos, in fact, the northeast has, I think, two, okay, well, the north one. 22 million. Yes, 22 million. I was looking at the numbers. Because I see that we have more people in the north, you know, who have got collected their PVCs. Most people would say that those PVCs, the reason why that register is the way it is is because there were lots of hiccups. Just like Shagun has said, many people said they registered, they've not seen their names on the register, or maybe they had double registration. Some people said, well, I transferred. I got an email. But then when I look at the register, I still do not see my name at the place where I registered, or rather that I transferred to. And there are people who don't even who have PVCs and do not know where they're going to vote. So again, it shows that, yes, we have new entrance into, you know, the voting system. But the things that we're hearing, does it one way or the other confirm the fears that people had at the beginning of this process of the fact that people may be very disenfranchised at the end of the day? Because it's not about how many people are on the register, but how many people will be able to vote on that day? Absolutely, actually, we have a situation that we do by game four. I would say, I never prepared as much as you told, but I'm sorry to say it appears it wasn't enough. Compared to, we're going to have a lot of first-time voters. I've been saying it since the community exercise. We're going to have all of the number of people that have been recorded that came out to vote, meaning I think it's not because they had about one million extra people at it. And for each of the various zones as well, at least a million people were added to the register. All of those people came out not because they were forced, but because they were willing and ready to actually be part of the process this time around. And so it was obvious that it wasn't going to just be about registering. They were also going to follow through to ensure that they get their PPCs. And sadly, it appears that I didn't bargain for that level of commitment of Nigerians to pick up cards, discards, and follow through the way it's happening now. The truth is, having come back elections in the past years, this is the first time we've seen Nigerians commit to a process to the very end. But fortunately, the last minute culture that we have as Nigerians is still there. But the fact that we have a good majority of people, I'm here to meet anyone who registered for this exercise that is not committed to ensuring that they get their cards, that change in behavior, I need to bargain for that. And so you find it in the number of staff that deployed to be part of this PPC collection exercise. We also find it in the planning. When you go to the PPC collection centers, you still find that it's not properly structured. So there's no speed. And there isn't a target of the number of people you're committed to ensure get their cards in the day, which is what you usually find in senior clients. There will be a target based on the number of staff and all that's available within the target to keep this number of people with their cards daily. We don't have any of such going on. Everything is just, I mean, I think the devolution definitely really helped. It helped, but it also created an issue. And because we're looking at the staff's strength or binary. And so when you say, when you say one person or two people should go to each word, is that number enough to serve the battalion of people that are going to gather at those boards who are eager to get their card? But Anak will tell you that one of the reasons why they did this devolution is so that he could reduce the number of people who are waiting at the local government headquarters to get these PPCs. But then on the day that they started this, I think that was Friday last week, Anak was also decrying the number of people who showed up in the first place that they were expecting more people to show up, even though it would not be a large crowd, but they expected that at least half of the number of people who are on the register for those wards and registration centers would show up. But then they came in trickles. So it also goes to, you know, wonder if we really are serious about the, you know, because there's that thing that's going around that, oh, this is the year that, you know, Nigerians are going to show their voting power and their might. But can we really rely on that? Because yes, we hear about the tsunamis on social media. But now that we're asking people to come and get the PPCs. For you, who's actually always in the field, what's the body language of the people right now, especially at a time like this? I would say anger. The language is anger. Some people are frustrated. And like I said, there's so much energy being put towards PPC collection, because there is so much sensitization done by both civil society and government themselves. And so what we're predicting that a lot of PPC collection centers are going to have a crowd, angry crowds on the final day, which is January 22nd. We're going to have a lot of people who just be there who show their frustration in some way. And I've actually also advised, based on that prediction, that they have some sort of security, you know, backup of some sort around these centers on the final day of PPC collection. Because like you said, the system didn't quite prepare for the number of people. You know, just trying to respond to what you said earlier. The truth is that the experiences define different states. In River State, it's been a very serious exercise here. The words get filled up and crowded. We've had to monitor this at different words. And each of those words are generally very crowded. And a lot of people showing up and not going anywhere until they get their cards. And really, the level of commitment we've seen, it's unprecedented, really, I must say. So one thing I'm predicting for sure is, I think by 15th, they'll go back to the local government offices and the crowds are not about to be used. And if the INEQ do not come up with order plans to, you know, further ensure that people see that they're making effort to ensure that there are no PPC cards stuck in the offices on election day, they're going to get a lot of people really angry, frustrated. And if you do not have security agencies getting in there, we may have a different story being told all together. I mean, stories of people harassing the INEQ staff would come in, and stories of people cutting the makeup, just, you know, things like that. And these are things that, at this point, it's actually a no-brainer, because when you look at, like I said, the body language is that of frustration. And the frustration came out of the enthusiasm of willingness to vote. And now where the system is showing that we didn't exactly prepare for all of the number of people that have come out to be a part of this, it's quickly turned into frustration. I can't remember the last time we spoke to someone who is at the collection center, who wasn't really angry, that the system is not allowing for a free process and for them to be able to get their cards. They say it's quite slow. They keep wishing it can be better, they keep wishing it can be faster, so that more people can get involved. Okay. Let me come back to you, Shagun. The first day that the the devolution of these voter's cards, PBC's pick-up was started. I was okay, Chama, so sorry, we lost that connection with you for a bit, but I'm going to Shagun. Shagun, the first day I went to, I went to somewhere here in Victoria Island, and the reaction I got from the people there was almost the same thing as Chama was talking about. A lot of people showed up, the process was slow, the hands were few, they thought it was going to be easy, peasy, but just a few people endured. I saw many people leave. In fact, a gentleman I interviewed told me that his wife, if his wife was here, he would only just look at you know, the crowd and how the process is slow and go home and say, you know what, well done. So it goes to my question. You are, we've been doing a lot of civic engagement and people like you act network, enough is enough, Yaga Africa, encouraging people to go and pick their PVCs, giving them reasons why they should go and vote. Do you think that we've done enough, including the media, in this sensitization, if there are people, especially people who are on the same level with you and I, because the gentleman I spoke to seemed to be well educated or of a certain class, and if people on that level are saying, I could not be boggled, I can't go through this stress, then what should we be really expecting? And does that mean that we're not, we've not done a job, you know, our jobs as we should? Well, you know, so, so with that, in which regards to that, I'm not expecting anything different from the pattern that we've seen in the past. What you find is both are turnout, both are party is generally higher, the higher you go off the economic ladder, you know, so the more affluent communities tend to be the places where turnout tends to be the lowest. So you go to places like BGC, you know, Park, the US State, and the Kauhi, you know, and all of that, maybe Makoto in the Keja, speaking about laborals, and you find that the turnout generally tends to be much lower than the less affluent communities. And even when they come out, they come out in public, they put out chairs and canopies, they do barbecues during an election day, make themselves very active, you know, so if you want to put them through a process, such people through a process that will stress them or take their time, which is more valuable to them than say, for example, somebody who is a organizer without due respect to the organizer, who is also a human being, they don't have the time to spend on a queue the whole day trying to pick up their PVC, so they will walk away. So there's a lot more work to be done by INEK and maybe by civil society, maybe by the media to try and, most critically, help people understand how to go about this, help people understand how to identify the location of their PVCs, because I think this is the real challenge. If it's just a question of going to the center and waiting three or four hours, and then you are sure you get your PVC, I'm sure most people don't mind, but the problem is you get to the center, sometimes you got waited on a queue for quite a bit of a while, only to find that they're telling you to go somewhere else. This is the problem. So INEK needs to, I want to suggest very strongly, if not for this round of collections, maybe for future elections, INEK must leverage technology, you know, this idea of trial and error, people going to three or four centers before you can locate your PVC is ridiculous, because INEK knows where those PVCs are. Before they release them from the local government or from the state INEK office to the local government, to the world, there's a register that you feel that will have the serial numbers of the cards that are released to specific locations. So you need to automate that process. It needs to be on a database somewhere, even if it's just an Excel sheet that people can query. So you can just go online, scan your registration number, whatever number that INEK gave to you when you did your capture, your data capture, and then it pops up the location of your card and you just go there. There's some efforts in that regard. There's some SMS, USB numbers that you can send messages to. There's some phone numbers that are flying around, but I find that those things are not really working. So I want to encourage INEK to really, really turn to technology as we go along with this processing. I think it's too late for this around the collections. So I think that what just needs to happen is that we need to continue to speak, continue to surprise people and continue to encourage them to hang in there, to stick in with the process, go through the inconveniences, suffer the pain just for the now. Pick up your PVC so you can exercise your franchise. But then going forward INEK has to do better. Do you think that INEK is taking on a bit more than it can handle being that, I mean, because you're talking about technology, INEK keeps, could also INEK, they try every other time to come up with new ideas. And now we have the beavers, which is also an upgrade of sorts. But look, with all of the things that you and Sharma have said tonight, does it seem a tad bit that INEK might be chewing more than or taking on more than it can handle? Absolutely. And, you know, this point you make, Meriam is very important. We, everybody needs to recognize the enormity of the task that INEK is entrusted with, you know, it's a massive logistic operation. I mean, just think about this, nine million, nine million cards need to be distributed across the entire country. Imagine how big this country is, and then you're sending nine million cards, you know, far and wide, different locations and all that. It's not easy, and we appreciate this. INEK needs to help themselves by leaning more on available resources. You know, the time must come when INEK will be able to look at this logistics and find it out, outsource it to logistic experts. Why do people have to leave their houses to go pick up PBCs? INEK is a federal government agency. Whatever the logistic cost will be, per head. There has to be a way, for example. But how many Nigerians will be willing to pay the cost because INEK again? No, I mean, the cost should not be borne by Nigerians, it should be borne by Nigeria, you know, and that's the point. So how much would it cost, for example, would it cost 500 Naira per head, for example, to send these PBCs via some sort of dispatch rider system to people? I'm not saying for the future, we need to think about a system that will make this more convenient for people. There are a lot of people in this country. How realistic is that? There are a lot of people in this country. Well, I mean, it's for us to think about and look at the challenges in that and see how we can, you know, iron out those challenges and make it. Look, what I'm saying is that if INEK does not make this convenient for people, then you will continue to suffer apathy. 96 million people registered out of 200 million, out of maybe about 150 million, a legible voter is not good enough, you know, and it's an enactment of INEK. INEK needs to make this process easier so that Nigerians will be more encouraged. It's just side of the coin. Of course, we need to speak to Nigerians themselves and get them more, you know, committed and more, you know, determined to exercise their franchise. But INEK needs to help make this easy. That's what they're doing everywhere in the world. You make it easy for citizens and they will exercise their franchise. Chama, do you agree? A million. Yeah, I was about to ask if you agree with his position, but go ahead. Yeah, just some issues I wanted to just clarify. We have 9.5 million people registered voters. Well, the truth is that the number of PVCs not gets collected and not obtained. We have a good number of those PVCs that the 9.5 million registered voters, we have a good number of those numbers in the hands of Nigerians. And that's a good thing. Okay, so for each now and happiness conversations, so remember that we're trying to pick lessons from it and see what we can do going forward is where I also want to look at. So what is it that we must do now? Because I think about in the next 10 days, we just have 10 days, the INEK actually now have 10, just 10 days to ensure that the rest of those cards, which I am, the last time we changed, I think it was wasn't up to 2 million uncollected cards or wasn't up to 2 million uncollected cards. And that's, that's a good thing that's happened compared to where we're coming from. We are coming from there are so many factors that contribute to voter apathy. And before now it was just that people had this distrust and were interested in what was going on. But now the system is going to contribute to voter apathy. And that's one thing that we need to focus on. So if INEK has to perhaps create another agency within an agency that will be responsible to ensuring that people get registered, and then, and then we've said this before actually, where there shouldn't be a separate time for continuous registration and a separate time for PVC collection. Let it just be a continuous where you can walk into a bank and get your ATM when it expires, a system that allows us. And that way there will never be a time we'll have crowds, just people picking up their PVCs and being a part of the election. I was in the United States during the last election. And one of the things I saw was that it's part of the process is embedded in the people's way of life that you can why going, maybe getting back from work, you can stop over and vote, you can the process has been embedded into the everyday life of the Americans. And so Nigerians can INEK is specifically now could begin to look at a situation where people can meet people where they are. And there isn't a separate time for continuous registration and a separate time for pickup. Everything should be happening at the same time. And then it kind of helps. I mean, we're 200 million people. And I think Americans are like about 300 million. So there's so much you can be learning from how these things are done. And we don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's something that we can learn how others have fixed the stain and just pick up those lessons. And it's possible. It can work. We can have as many as as as are willing to be a part of the election, be a part of this election, or it starts with the commitment to accepting where we got it wrong, where we got it right, and restricting our steps and ensuring that we get it right the next time. I mean, the next election should there has to be something to learn. And it should start with the process of registering people and people getting their cards and people being able to locate like he was saying, Sachengu was saying that people still do not know. We've got a lot of such calls, people asking us, please, where should I go pick up my PVC? And so we have to keep sharing the INEK collection center list for people to be able to figure that out. We need to fix that in the future. And to add to it, we need to do all of those things in record time and not wait for the last minute. Finally, I want to take you on again on the so-called middle class, which is gradually fading out anyway. I don't know if we still have a middle class in Nigeria, but these people who we categorize, because you know, you try to make a case that, oh, you know, they like their comfort. But these are the people who the supposed in quotes, vulcanizers would be looking up to. And if these are the people who do not necessarily show up, I mean, these are the guys who are very good orators on social media, who have these conversations at dinner tables here and there. And they're very, you know, they're emotional about these things. But then when it comes down to elections, they're not voting. Is it that the system doesn't affect them or they careless? Because I'm trying to understand if we do not understand the problem, we cannot get the solution. If these people are one way or the other staying away from the process that is supposed to change the narrative of Nigeria, and these people mostly are the ones that can. I mean, where does that leave us as a country if it's just anyone who's, I mean, the average poor person is the one who shows up to vote. But the man who seems a bit comfortable doesn't think it's important. I mean, I was talking to a colleague of mine, and I asked if he had a PPC and he said no, and that he doesn't care. But this is a journalist. So again, these are the issues. Yeah, I mean, there are quite a lot of people in our middle class, whether they exist or not, you know, they're still there. You know, there are a lot of people in that category of Nigerians who simply don't care. And if you ask me why, Miriam, I can't answer that question. I think it's a gamut of social issues that has led us to this point. I think that the average Nigerian middle class person is concerned about more economic issues, some at the existential level. Everything is also part of the election. The economy will be adjusted one way or the other if the elections turn out great. Absolutely. But, you know, the thing is, the nexus, the connection, making an emotional connection between the outcomes of elections and our current situation can be a bit challenging for a lot of people. You know, for them, they're simply going about their life. They want to make sure that they can pay their children's company. They want to pay the next rent. You know, they're concerned about these basic economic issues. And, you know, for a lot of them, it's just the case of, look, I couldn't be bothered. You know, let me just face this my life and make it work. You know, so we need to get to a point where people can see how the connection is a direct connection. The outcome of the election next week is going to determine my income level before the end of this year, based on the policies that the winner will rule out. But somehow, I think that connection is still a bit missing for the middle class. So you see how much of a problem we have because if the middle class can't make this connection, then how can the guy who is living day by day, hand to mouth, make the connection? And it's so ironic because they are the ones that trip out to vote because of both buying and the other factors. So it's a terrible situation to find ourselves in. And we can only just continue to appeal to people to show more interest in these things. Well, time is not on our side. So we have to go. We have to go. We have to go. We don't have time anymore. Okay. Shamai Zemafua is the head of news. Cool. Wasabi Info, Port Hackett, that's 92.3. And Shegong Shoprita is of ACT Network and is also a public affairs analyst. There's so much to talk about, but then we have another Thursday. We'll come back and have this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. All right. Thank you for staying with us. We'll take a quick break. When we return, we'll be discussing the escalation of political thuggery in Nigeria as election season draws near. Stay with us.