The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that politicians or their proxies purchasing Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) to manipulate the elections are engaging in a wasteful exercise.
The INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, made the declaration on Monday while featuring on a political programme Sunday Politics on Channels TV.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) had alleged that politicians are buying PVCs from poor voters to manipulate the forthcoming general elections in the country, a development that was corroborated by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).
Okoye said the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) will reject biometric data of persons who are not original owners of the traded PVCs.
He described as impossibility, plans by some desperate politicians, who are already harvesting PVCs to rig the next election.
“Anybody who is purchasing a permanent voter card is just engaging in an exercise in futility. The only thing any person can do is to make sure the voter does not vote on election day but for you to come to the polling unit on election day with voter’s card belonging to someone else, and you attempt to vote with it, that is an impossibility, the BVAS will not capture your fingerprint,” Okoye said.
Recently, a video went viral of a man who hid several PVCs in a hole in a community in Ogun State.