Five (5) Reasons Why the Proposed Voting Without PVC Might Impact Positively on Elections in Nigeria
INTRO: One of the criticisms I held against the 2023 general election in Nigeria was the flouting of INEC's directives on no Permanent Voter's Card (PVC), no voting. I remember vividly how the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu was on the national TV professing no PVC, no voting, while the voters were in the fields having a field day, voting without PVCs, but just with their Voter Identification Number (VIN). I would later realise that they were able to do it because the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) needs just the VIN and the biometric confirmations to authenticate a Voter, and this means that voting without PVC is not much of electoral infraction except from legal perspectives as the electoral law does not recognise it. Section 47 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022 is quite instructive stating that; “A person attending to vote in an election shall present himself with his voter’s card to a presiding officer for accreditation at the polling unit in the constitu...