The Assembly of Registered Political Parties (ARPP), in partnership with the National Orientation Agency (NOA), started a sensitisation campaign on Saturday in Edo.
The enlightenment campaign was tagged Operation Collect Your Permanent Voters Card (PVC) and Violence free campaigns.
Mr Bishop Akhalamhe, the chairman of the group, said that the enlightenment campaign became necessary in view of reports of over 500,000 uncollected PVCs in INEC office, in the state.
According to Akhalamhe, the state chairman of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), said that this is a Flag-off campaign for Operation Collect Your PVC and Violence Free Elections.
We do not want to be having elections, characterised by violence, where people have to be killed, maimed because of elections.
We also discovered that in Edo State, a lot of people have not collected their PVCs, whereas, INEC told us during our last stakeholders’ meeting with them that over 500,000 uncollected PVCs are with them.
As stakeholders and political leaders, we decided to come together under the umbrella of ARPP, to push this campaign to encourage people to go to INEC offices to collect their PVCs.
We are doing this because we want them to be eligible to vote. If you say you want to change a system, the first process is to get a PVC, he said.
According to him, they are basically helping INEC and also collaborating with NOA to see how they can have a better society.
The exercise will be taken round the three senatorial districts.
The State Director, NOA, Mr Austin Odile noted that registration and collection of PVCs were the first steps to be taken in an electoral process.
When this is not done, the outcome will throw up mediocrities and unpopular candidates.
A lot of persons still show apathy towards democratic process because they have not benefitted from the gains of democracy since 1999, and as a result, they do not see any reason why they should participate.
We are using the campaign to encourage them to take ownership of the process and participate actively, he said.
However, Odile called on the youth not to allow themselves to be used as thugs to disrupt the process.
The youth demography is huge, that is the reservoir where mischievous politicians recruit, train and deploy young men as thugs to disrupt the election process, he added.
We are reaching out to them and their parents to say that they should not sell their future to those masquerading as their saviour.
Also, Mr Sunny Aguebor, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP candidate for Oredo federal constituency, urged candidates to ensure that campaigns were issue-based.
The major issues are that Nigerians are suffering untold hardships, insecurity and the economy is messed up, Aguebor said.
He said the focus should be how the electoral process will run smoothly.
The PDP Ovia South West House of Assembly candidate, Mr Destiny Enabulele said Nigeria’s democracy was suffering from the double apathy of voters card collection and turnouts.
we must all participate actively in the electoral process and avoid statements like ‘our votes do not count’
if votes do not count, politicians would not bribe or pay people to vote for them. Go and collect your PVCs, INEC will not bring them to you, he said.
He also added that INEC had strengthened the electoral process, with the introduction of new technology that would make vote to count.
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