Flaws in Nigeria’s Electoral System – Igbere TV

By: Uche Enyioko

Our electoral system has knowingly or unknowingly disenfranchised about five hundred thousand (500,000) eligible voters. This group of Nigerian citizens work directly under the elected officials and yet they have no say in shaping their leadership.

While serving as the Director of the Movement for a Better Nigeria (MBN), I found out that our armed security officers do not have permanent voter card (PVC). When I tried to find out why they do not have PVC, it was found that some of them were not properly informed while others refused to be informed about the importance of having a PVC and voting on election day. These people will tell you that voting is for damned civilians. In the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), Norway (NOR) and South Korea, where I spent about 15 years studying the secrets of their rapid development, all the security forces of these countries always go about their civic duty. The system allows them to vote a few days before the actual election day to give them an opportunity to perform their security duties on election days. However, in our country, the system has made it impossible for them to cast their vote.

I wrote to INEC in 2015, made a presentation on national radio on the issue and also spoke to the Abia Electoral Commissioner on July 27, 2017 in the presence of the security chiefs and political stakeholders of Abia State on the issue in 2019 and said that the security forces did not have PVC and that it was wrong that our forces were not part of the bodies that constitute the Commanders in Chief of the Armed Forces, the State Security Chiefs and the legislators who make the laws that govern their duties.

Why is it important that these people be part of the electoral process? In the past, they have planted “torpedoes” on our democracy. To prevent this from happening again, we need to include them in the process. It is almost impossible for a sane person to destroy a house that he himself built.

I, Uche Enyioko, am so moved that our Electoral Commission should accommodate these people who can read, write and speak and who will not be bought cheaply by the moneybags in politics to contest the election and we must not overlook that these security forces who are about five hundred thousand (500,000) with guns in hand have the ability to shorten what over sixty million (60,000,000) people of the nation have done

I pray that the relevant authority will listen and do the necessary things for the good of our country as promised.

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Should the authority concerned now refuse or avoid taking responsibility, it cannot escape the potentially unimaginable consequences of its irresponsibility.

May God help us

Jesus is Lord

Uche Enyioko is a former Commissioner for Agriculture, former Special Adviser to the Governor of Abia State on Education and the 2015 PPA deputy gubernatorial candidate.