2015: Jonathan gives Jega marching order on PVCs

President Goodluck Jonathan has given Independent Elec­toral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Pro­fessor Attahiru Jega, the marching order to ensure all registered Nigerians get their permanent voters cards to enable them vote their pre­ferred candidates in the Feb­ruary elections.

Criticisms, lamentations and anger have continued to trail the distribution of the per­manent voters cards (PVC) to Nigerians by INEC with many accusing the commission of deliberatly planning to disen­franchise them from voting in the coming elections.

The President gave the or­der when he swore in the new INEC commissioner, Prof. Akinola Murtala Salau, Na­tional Commissioner repre­senting Oyo State and member of the commission.

This is even as Jega has re­sponded that all registered Ni­gerians would get their PVC before the election date of February 14.

President Jonathan said the whole world had been watch­ing INEC to see if it could de­liver credible elections, noting that a situation where Nigeri­ans including highly placed individuals especially gover­nors were complaining of not having their voters cards was not acceptable.

Jonathan, who said he was happy about the level of awareness of Nigeri­ans demanding for their voters cards, noted that before 2011 Nigerians did not care about voters cards, but his adminis­tration as a result of its com­mitment and determination has sanitised the electoral pro­cess enough to raise awareness of Nigerians on their rights to vote. The President, who said no matter what the critics of his administration might say, they could not take the glory of the sanitisation of the elec­toral process.