Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) on Wednesday played host to officials comprising a national commissioner, state commissioner, head of ICT and chief press secretary to the chairman from the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who had come to apologise to him on the shoddy distribution of Permanent Voters Card (PVC) in the state.
The INEC team said the poor distribution of the PVCs is not about him personally, but about ensuring that every registered voter in Lagos gets their PVCs.
Fashola, who spoke at the Lagos House, Ikeja said until he gets his PVC and other registered voters get theirs, INEC has not done its job.
The governor, who noted the explanation offered by the team from the INEC headquarters, said he received complaints from the residents of Lagos on a daily basis about the shortcomings of INEC on the exercise.
He said, “Let me make it clear that this is not personal and it is about our country. The right of citizens, it is about our image as a people and it is about our prosperity. Whether we get electricity, whether we get water, whether we are able to be secured, whether our children have a future depends on what government does”.
According to the governor, there is in the public domain, a persisting fear about the credibility of the electoral process which is not being helped by the tardiness of INEC thus far.
“Government will not be formed unless elections are held. It is only credible elections that respond to the will of the people. The worry out there is that people still need to be persuaded that their votes will count. So whether you like it or not or whether INEC likes it or not, it is a credibility issue about electoral processes and we must therefore act all the time to reinforce that credibility rather than diminish it”, he added.
The governor noted that while the team can come out and make explanations to him as a person on what went wrong, it’s difficult to determine how many people they make similar explanations to because there are thousands and millions of them that are experiencing what he as the governor has experienced.
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