A national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Saturday urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to display the 2011 voters’ register for Lagos State.
His call came amid the raging controversy over the discrepancy in the number of voters registered in Lagos in 2011 and the announcement by the commission that it would distribute 4.8 million Permanent Voter Cards.
Gov. Babatunde Fashola had in reaction to the figure claimed that 6.2 million people had registered in the state in 2011.
Addressing newsmen at the party’s secretariat in Lagos, Tinubu urged INEC to publish the difference in the number of registered voters in Lagos and make it open for verification.
“We have a right to know. The 2011 election in Lagos State was concluded with a known figure of 6.2 million registered voters.APC demands INEC making public the voters’ register. We have a constitutional right under the Freedom of Information Act to do so,” Tinubu said.
According to him, INEC has no authority to void any voter permanently unless the court says so.
He decried INEC’s unpreparedness in the PVC distribution in Lagos and suggested that it should stop the exercise and conduct it simultaneously in all the local government areas in the state.
“Our reports from the field show that the exercise has failed and is unacceptable. In some areas, INEC did not start on time and the cards were not properly sorted.
“If for four years INEC is still not ready with the PVC, then it is not ready to conduct the 2015 election.
“What can INEC do in four months that it could not do in four years?” Tinubu queried.
NAN reports that the Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Adekunle Ogunmola, had confirmed the discrepancy in the number of voters registered in 2011 and the number of PVCs to be distributed.
Ogunmola explained that some of the registrations in 2011 were voided due to multiple registrations.
Meanwhile, Amb Lawrence Nwuruku, a National Commissioner of INEC monitoring the PVC distribution in Lagos, on Saturday appealed for calm.
The INEC National Commissioner told newsmen that no eligible voter would be defranchised in Lagos.
“We will do everything possible to ensure that all eligible voters get their permanent voter cards.
“Nobody, including new registrants, will be disqualified,” he said.
INEC had on Thursday postponed the distribution in nine local government areas in Lagos due to logistics.
Many eligible voters in the 11 other local government areas where the exercise was scheduled to begin on Friday, had also gone home disappointed on the first day.
As it entered the second day on Saturday, eligible voters were, however, able to collect their cards in some polling units across the state.