Key Issues To Tackle Before The February 2019 General Elections in Nigeria

Over the years, the poor masses in Nigeria have known little about its electoral process, and in most cases become ignored in these processes. With the general elections just 277 Days away, we take a closer look at some of the most pressing challenges the country will need to tackle before February 2019 .

First on this list is the Abuse of The ''INEC Voters Card''; over time thuggery and electoral violence has been seen as the major challenges faced during and after elections, but the issue of individuals abusing the INEC PVC seems to far out weigh all of thuggery and electoral violence. The problem being that majority of Nigerians barely know the true value of the card, almost all civil servants do own a voters card to meet requirements in their offices, while other jobbers would say it serves some helping hand in their pursuit for bank account openings and other means of identification. Then comes those who have multiple voters cards, some over hundreds and it could even amount to a whole polling unit, and these groups who posses these cards will go all out to offer lucrative amount of money to INEC officials and AD HOC Staffs who will in turn allow one or a group to vote with hundreds of cards that neither carry their names nor their faces. There are those who will not even make an attempt to get a Voters card accounting to the fact that their votes will not even count, these group believes a winner has been decided before the elections. By January 19-2019 INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu through Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi said the commission has over 74 million voters in its register by the second week of January. The chairman said the figure was expected to reach between 80 and 85 million by 2019 because of the on-going nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).

The ''INEC Voters Card''

Another major concern is the INEC CARD READER; introduced in the 2015 general election to verify the INEC voters card before a card holder becomes eligible to vote. During the 2015 general election it was observed that the device failed to read several cards and accept thumbs of card owners, this in itself is a major problem.
Another ultimate challenge with the device is that it is re-programmable. During the 2015 election most of the devices were re-programmed to accept thumbs that were ineligible, making room for access to cards that belongs to the dead and even multiple card owners, this is one major area INEC and Nigerians at large must be vigilant to to avoid the results of the past.

INEC CARD READER, introduced in the 2015 general election to verify the INEC voters card

AD HOC STAFFS; are deployed into every polling unit, and in most cases youths and NYSC members. With 277 Days to the forth coming general election it will be expected that youths around the nation whom the President ascribed as lazy would once again risk their lives to work with INEC to ensure elections are held in every quarter, most with the mind set of getting bribed lucratively and others to serve the nation. A major backslash is the numeral death toll recorded during elections and violent activities that leads to injuries and have had many handicapped.

AD HOC STAFFS are deployed into every polling unit, , and in most cases youths and NYSC members.

Thuggery and electoral Violence; This have become a norm in the country during elections, most youths have become body guards and thugs and in other cases assassins deployed by desperate politicians to mag against opposition parties. During electoral processes this youths do cause commotion that have led to killings, injuries, and most of all hijack of ballot boxes. The scenes created by these set of youths has led to re-run elections and as a result instilled fear in the hearts of both young and old voters, many decided to stay clear from elections as a result of this. Thuggery and electoral Violence;Elections are key pillars of democracy and have become the commonly accepted means of legitimizing government. Once elections are flawed, it is an invitation to violence in the State which may snowball into political instability. This examines electoral violence in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic (1999 - 2015) and its implications for political stability. This have become a norm in the country during elections

Thuggery and electoral Violence

There are so many anti-electoral acts such as arm violence, underage voting, palm camel and election rigging that has resulted to the poor choice of leadership, aiming in anticipation towards the February 2019 election Nigerians would need to be vigilant in order to avoid the errors of the past. We should be determined to fix most of this problems before February 2019 so that we will not end up complaining, like some would tell you they collected handful of funds to cast a vote only to suffer through out the term.
With just 277 Days to the forth coming general elections, Nigeria must be be prepared to take her destiny back and not rely on the lips of some vague politician.

Champion Aden....