Out of about 34,000 new voters that registered between June and December in Lagos, only 3,000 have collected their Permanent Voter Cards (PVC), the Lagos Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje has disclosed.
Agbaje who revealed this during a press conference to herald the second edition of a musical concert tagged: “Youth Vote Count Mega Music Concert” slated for Saturday at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, expressed dissatisfaction over the low turnout of newly registered voters to collect their PVC.
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He added that the commission had ordered officers at local government level to call voters to collect their PVCs but responses from the voters have not been encouraging, saying some voters asked that the PVCs should be brought to their houses.
He advised that people need to make sacrifices to get their cards.
He said, “Already, we have about 34,000 new PVCs, those who registered between June and December last year, that take fresh registration, their PVCs are out now but it is very disturbing that since April this year when we brought out these cards, as at last week Monday, only 3000 have been collected.
“I asked officers in the local governments to call them that their PVCs are here, they said we should bring them to their houses which is not possible, you must be ready to make some sacrifices. I have always said that nobody can eat omelet without breaking egg, if that is correct, then you must make some little effort to also go and collect our PVC.” He said.
He stressed that the commission would commence a campaign to encourage newly registered voters to get cards starting from next month July.
At the event, the representative of European Union (EU), Mrs. Laolu Olaoye, commended the commission for supporting The Youth Vote Count project, saying it was aimed at abating voters’ apathy and ensuring that youth participate in the electoral process.
“The youth vote count is a non-partisan campaign that was launched in 2018 with the sole objective of getting young people to participate more in the electoral process.
“Everyone knows here that the population of young people in this country is huge but that has translated to effective participation in an electoral process and simply what the youth vote count is all about.
“One thing that we also need to stress, we know there is high level of voters’ apathy, people just don’t want to engage, and the reason people don’t want to engage is that they don’t believe that the system will work for them, they don’t believe whatever they do or how they cast their vote will influence the kind of leaders they get at the end of the day…”
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