Why PVC Thefts Should Bother INEC

BY its admission, more than one million permanent voters’ cards have been stolen from the Indepen-dent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which prefaces this story with the trite line that the cards are uselesssince only their authentic owners could use them. INEC should get wiser as the thefts continue.There must be a use for stolen PVCs. INEC, to its shame, has not found out. The professionals who break into where the cards are stored, have good reasons to do so, reasons that should interest INEC, if it questions the assumed fidelity of the card. It is also futile reasoning for INEC to believe that the thieves are interested in voting with these cards.They have better uses for them. Questions INEC officials should answer include how the movement of the cards is such public information that rogues have them and why the INEC officials entrusted with the cardsare not being punished when they are stolen.Cards have been stolen in Ebonyi, Edo (8,319 in November 2014), Delta (1.3 million over two days in August 2014; 6,000 in January 2015), Rivers (31,000 in January 2015) states – at least the reported cases.Where else have cards missed and INEC thought nothing of them? In the latest reported incident in Delta State, 6,000 cards, according to INEC, were stolen. The thieves were armed enough to execute their brief.Today’s thieves are too sophisticated to waste their time on unprofitable ventures. INEC, therefore, deceives itself by insisting that stolen cards are useless. It should interrogate the motive of the thieves beyond voting with the cards. Does INEC know stolen cards could be used to rig the elections? If particular polling units, wards, local government areas or states lose their cards to thieves, would the stolen cards not affect the results? Voters are being denied their rights; all that INEC could say is that it would not reproduce the cards.It is holding lowly security officials responsible for a massive national task with vast implications that INEC top officials should understand. While INEC has gone digital with its PVCs, thieves have taken the future step of stealing the cards to ensure that those they do not want to vote would not vote.The matter raises issues with the praises INEC has been heaping on itself. Who takes responsibility for the breach of rights of those who cannot vote because their cards were stolen? If INEC’s biometrics were not amyth, voters whose cards were stolen or unissued should be accredited at the polling booths once their finger prints identify them, but INEC has handed that decision to the almighty card reader, which only recognises PVC-bearing voters.