Protest paralyses Abuja

 

Less than two weeks to the presidential election, some groups of civil societies staged a fresh protest, calling on relevant agencies to postpone the elections.
The protest led to a temporal traffic gridlock around major routes leading to the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The protesters, made up of hundreds of angry youths, said they could not sit back and allow millions of Nigerians to be disenfranchised by INEC.
The protesters converged on the Fountain Square, Maitama, marched to INEC office, carrying placards with different inscriptions. They took over major routes within and around INEC, thereby causing heavy traffic. Security agents were on ground to coordinate the protest.
Speaking on behalf of other protesters, the leader of the Forum for Democratic Change and convener of the protest, Mr. Solomon Chuks, said Nigeria was at a crossroads. He argued that despite the efforts put in by INEC, more than 20 million Permanent Voters Cards (PVC) were yet to be collected by eligible voters.
He said the situation would affect many registered Nigerian voters, who might be disenfranchised  on election day. He said it was crystal clear that INEC would not be able to get all the cards across to voters within the limited time.
He said: “Despite the efforts by INEC, the results are that nearly 20 million PVCs are yet to be collected across the country.
“The implication of this development is that a good number of registered Nigerian voters may be disenfranchised from voting on election day because it is crystal clear that INEC will not be able to get all of them or even most of them in the hands of their owners. By so doing they will be denied their inalienable right to perform this most sacred civic duty.
“Over and above this, it might give disgruntled politicians an opportunity to scuttle our democracy which was not only hard earned, but also protected and nurtured for the past 16 years.
“You will all agree with me that an aggrieved loser can use this as an excuse to go to court to prove that his or her supporters were disenfranchised from voting. So, the election runs a high risk of judicial annulment.”
which hearkens a dark past in our history.
“As protectors of Nigeria’s democracy, we in the civil society under the aegis of the Forum ‎for Democratic Change join other well-meaning Nigerians like the former executive governor of Kaduna State, Dr. Balarabe Musa, who recently called on INEC to take advantage of the window inherent in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and the Electoral Act to adjust election timetable and postpone elections so that the commission can have more time to distribute the PVCs and save Nigeria from a crisis that may be brought on us by losers .”