The Unified Nigerian Youth Forum (UNYF) has rejected Independent National Electoral Commission’s extension of Continuous Voters Registration and validation, saying 60 days extension not enough to allow full adult suffrage.
The Forum urged INEC to consider extending the Voters Registration and Validation exercise significantly beyond the 60 days to enable all youths that would attain voting age by September and others who are unable to get their PVCs till date, get them, noting that 7.7 million of their members across the country will be of voting age by September and they would be disenfrachised under the current arrangement.
Speaking in a statement signed by its President, Malam Abdulsalam Moh’d Kazeem, UNYF said many people were unable to get registered as a result of long queues, corrupt process, inadequate centres, favouritism and late report to duty post by most INEC officials.
“The Unified Nigerian Youth Forum alone has over 10 millions registered/ financial members cut across the nation, going by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) proposal the registration will stop by August ending; to us this show that many eligible Nigerians will be delibrately disenfranchised and our members inclusive. It’s unconstitutional, shameful, unacceptable, illegal and outdated for INEC to proposed closing its portal five months to general elections in this 21st century, where technology is the new order of the day.
“As one of the developing nations, we should go the way of international standards and best practices, there’s nothing wrong for the registration to stop a week or few days to general elections. But we are aware that we are not ready for such due to some factors associated with electoral processes in our nation.
“INEC’s attempt to close the Continuous Voters Registration and Validation exercise by September ending calls for serious concern. So the Commission should urgently embarked on the expansion of its voters registration and validation infrastructure to serve the teeming numbers of Nigerians who are patriotic and willing to exercise their civil duties in 2023 than trying to delibrately disenfranchised them by man made factors.
“We salute the courage of the Zamfara state Governor for declaring a work free week in this regards and the leadership of the House of Representatives who seek for extension of the said exercise for 60 days and was approved today, and we equally condemned in totality the silence of all those who refused to speak because they felt the era of ghost voters will affect their victory as usual,” Kazeem said.
