2023 polls: Concerns as over 3 million students face disenfranchisement

 2023 polls: Concerns as over 3 million students face disenfranchisement

2023 polls: Concerns as over 3 million students face disenfranchisement

There are numerous concerns against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with only 30 days till Nigeria’s presidential election, the first significant election in the globe in 2023.

These include issues with picking up voter identification cards, allegations of extortion by INEC employees, and reports that non-indigenous people in some States are not given voter identification cards.

According to DAILY POST, there are concerns that up to 3.2 million Nigerian students who were at home throughout the continuous voter registration campaign could not be eligible to vote in the 2023 general elections as the deadline for collecting Permanent Voters Cards, or PVCs approaches on January 29. The development is a result of the eight-month-long prolonged industrial action that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, or ASUU, members began for the majority of 2022.

Recall that on February 14, 2022, ASUU announced a strike in protest of the Federal government’s callous treatment of the requests and predicament of lecturers.

ASUU President Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke stated that “the government’s reaction to the union’s requests had not been appropriately handled” when announcing the labor strike.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, intervened and convinced ASUU to end the strike after eight months, in October 2022.

According to DAILY POST, Gbajabiamila stepped into the conflict to mediate a settlement between the Federal government and ASUU after all previous talks fell apart.

The country-wide Continuous Voter Registration, or CVR, exercise was in progress during the time between the strike.

It started in June 2021 and peaked while many pupils were home from school. To allow the electoral authority to clean up the register and delete multiple registrants using the Automated Biometric Identification System, or ABIS, the INEC declared the completion of the voter registration procedure on July 31, 2022.

Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of INEC, announced during the commission’s third quarterly meeting with political parties in Abuja in 2022 that there were 9,518,188 freshly registered voters nationwide. He also noted that the general elections in 2023 will be held for young people.

As for the demographic breakdown, there are slightly more female voters (4.8 million, or 50.82%) than male voters (4.6 million, or 49.18%), with 7.2 million new voters, or 76.5 percent, being young adults between the ages of 18 and 34. 3.8 million people (40.8%) work as students, according to Yakubu.According to DAILY POST, there are concerns that up to 3.2 million Nigerian students who were at home throughout the continuous voter registration campaign could not be eligible to vote in the 2023 general elections as the deadline for collecting Permanent Voters Cards, or PVCs approaches on January 29. The development is a result of the eight-month-long prolonged industrial action that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, or ASUU, members began for the majority of 2022.

Recall that on February 14, 2022, ASUU announced a strike in protest of the Federal government’s callous treatment of the requests and predicament of lecturers.

ASUU President Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke stated that “the government’s reaction to the union’s requests had not been appropriately handled” when announcing the labor strike.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, intervened and convinced ASUU to end the strike after eight months, in October 2022.

According to DAILY POST, Gbajabiamila stepped into the conflict to mediate a settlement between the Federal government and ASUU after all previous talks fell apart.

The country-wide Continuous Voter Registration, or CVR, exercise was in progress during the time between the strike.

It started in June 2021 and peaked while many pupils were home from school. To allow the electoral authority to clean up the register and delete multiple registrants using the Automated Biometric Identification System, or ABIS, the INEC declared the completion of the voter registration procedure on July 31, 2022.

Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of INEC, announced during the commission’s third quarterly meeting with political parties in Abuja in 2022 that there were 9,518,188 freshly registered voters nationwide. He also noted that the general elections in 2023 will be held for young people.

As for the demographic breakdown, there are slightly more female voters (4.8 million, or 50.82%) than male voters (4.6 million, or 49.18%), with 7.2 million new voters, or 76.5 percent, being young adults between the ages of 18 and 34. 3.8 million people (40.8%) work as students, according to Yakubu.

Festus Okoye, the INEC Commissioner for Voter Education, who announced the extended PVC collection deadline, said the activity would now end on January 29 rather than January 22, as it had been originally planned.

The commission is committed to giving registered voters plenty of time to obtain their PVCs before the upcoming election.

“As a result, the collecting period for PVCs has been extended by eight days. The PVC collection will last until January 29, 2023, rather than concluding on January 22, 2023. Currently, collection hours are from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day (including weekends), according to Okoye.

However, certain stakeholders, including political parties, are not happy with the one-week extension and have expressed worry over Nigerian students who registered at their various home locations during the ASUU strike but are now unable to obtain their PVCs.One of these stakeholders, Dr. Sam Amadi, a prominent academic and the director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, thought it was essential to let students leave class and go home to pick up their PVCs.

Following a press conference held by the School of Social and Political Thoughts in Abuja on Tuesday, Amadi spoke to DAILY POST.

He pointed out that the number of youths (18-35) was 37,060,399, or 40% of the total number of 93,469,008 eligible voters reported by the INEC.

“Some stakeholders, including political parties, had raised concerns about the process before the extension was granted. They complain about the slow pace of work. Others complain of obstruction of INEC officials or a poor setup for a more community-based collecting Students who have returned to class but enrolled at home while classes were closed due to protracted strikes raise concerns. Is it fair to anticipate that these pupils will leave school, return home, and pick up their PVCs during the time allotted by INEC for PVC collection?,” Amadi questioned. He continued by saying that many registered voters had yet to pick up their voter cards as a result of INEC employees acting improperly by conspiring with politicians to deny some registered voters their PVCs and frequently as a result of avoidable operational hiccups.

Students from the University of Abuja expressed regret to the Daily Post that the strike had prevented them from voting in the upcoming elections.

They criticized the management of the tertiary institution for their unwillingness to take into account a break for students to pick up their PVCs, which was a crucial need for taking part in the election.

“It appears that we students are powerless. Many of us can’t get ourselves to go home to get our PVCs since we reside in homes outside of the Federal Capital Territory, or FCT. “It is up to the university administration to decide whether or not we will take a break,” said Kephas, a Kaduna State resident studying political science at the 400-level.”I just wish I could travel and pick up my PVC, but as it stands, I can’t help it,” said Edozie, an Abia State native learning English. Regrettably, Nigerian politicians have used youth as a scapegoat.

Attempts by DAILY POST to get in touch with the university’s public relations officer to find out if the administration had made plans to provide students a break period were unsuccessful.

A communication expert at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Dr. Chidiebere Nwachukwu, stated the same thing in an interview with the DAILY POST: “Youths should be provided appropriate support to participate actively in the democratic process.”

“I do believe that since we want to make this election as inclusive as possible, enough provisions should be provided for the students to go and obtain their PVCs. The young people who are leading the process can only do this if they are given every opportunity to actively take part in choosing the new leaders.

“If we don’t have the input mechanism to make sure that people who should engage are allowed to actively participate in the democratic process, then there is no way we can be talking about democracy,” he stated.