If the current drive to mobilize voters for Nigeria’s 2023 general election continues, the country could record the highest level of voter turnout in its election history.
In a country where voter apathy has often marred elections and cast doubts on results declared, the current drive is an obvious strategy to encourage Nigerians to take their destiny into their own hands.
From church pulpits to town union meetings and association gatherings, to WhatsApp groups, leaders are aggressively mobilizing their members to get their Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs as the effective weapon with which to vote in those they want to rule them come 2023.
The process is getting heated up because according to the Independent National Electoral Commission, the revision of the voter’s list, which includes the issuance of the PVC to new voters and the replacement of misplaced ones ends at the end of June.
At the Port Harcourt-based Omega Power Ministry (OPM), the General Overseer, Apostle Chibuzor Gift Chinyere, is not taking chances about the importance of the PVC in the new political dispensation. He has told his members and all who benefit in one way or the other from the ministry to get theirs within one week.
He has ordered that without PVCs, members and beneficiaries would lose their privileges. He has also declared that those who trade within the church cannot do any more without their PVCs, as they will not be allowed entry into the market.
On one WhatsApp group, a Catholic Priest is seen standing in front of the entry into the Church auditorium and telling the members that, as he had previously told them, nobody would be allowed to participate in the Mass unless they showed their PVCs.
A pastor of an Assemblies of God Church branch in Lagos on Sunday pleaded with his members who are of voting age to ensure they obtain their voters’ cards before the deadline set by INEC.
Chibuzor also added that any student of the church’s school (probably a university) who failed to procure his or her PVC would “automatically” carry over a course.
