PDP: APC Unlawfully Collecting PVCs

  
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State has alerted security agencies that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was illegally retrieving permanent voters cards (PVCs) from members of the public in preparation for re-run elections in the state.

The state Chairman of PDP, Felix Obuah, through a statement issued by his Media Adviser, Jerry Needam, alleged that the APC had been dispossessing members of the public their PVCs under the guise of conducting the party’s membership registration in the state.

It therefore called on the police and other security agencies in the state to take urgent steps to arrest the culprits.

  
The statement said: “Mindful of the criminal implication of the act, and the danger it poses to the nations democratic electoral process, the Rivers State chapter of the PDP has called on the police and other security agencies to urgently be on the heels of leaders and members of the APC in the state, who have under the guise of conducting the party’s membership registration in the state unlawfully dispossess members of the public of their PVCs.
Obuah said the PDP was concerned because of its criminal inclination and as it infringes on the fundamental rights of the original owners of the PVCs, who have been stripped of the rights to exercise their franchise and whose personal identities have also been impersonated, undermined, endangered and abused.
The PDP chairman said he has not only received reports but had further confirmed that leaders and members of the APC now, under the pretext of revalidating their membership base, procured with N5,000 per PVC, and in some cases, forcefully, through intimidation and threat, collected PVCs from the electorate across the state, particularly in the Ogoni Local Government Area, ONELGA, Port Harcourt, Obio-Akpor, Etche, Kalabari, Ahoada East, Ahoada West, Opobo/Nkoro, Andoni, Oyigbo, among other areas of the state.
“We are also made to believe that the act of buying PVCs with such amount is an exposition of the APC taking undue advantage of the poverty and the hard economic situation that have ravaged the nation following the insensitivity and apparently lack of vision and focus by the APC administration under President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The PDP views the actions of the APC to have negated the very essence for which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conceived and produced the cards which contain essential personal details of the individuals and original owners of the respective PVCs,” he said, adding that the development was retrogressive, unpatriotic and portends grave danger to the survival of the nations democratic system, and should not be allowed to continue.
While calling on Rivers people to stop releasing their PVCs to fraudulent members and agents of the APC, no matter the persuasion, inducement, intimidation and threat, the PDP urged the various community leaders to check the trend and not to allow their communities to be used in perpetrating electoral fraud by the APC.

  
“The PDP again appeals to the police and other security agencies to be unbiased and more proactive in their responsibilities in checking all forms of crime, including electoral felony which has characterised the ongoing APC registration exercise in the state,” the statement added.
But the APC has described the allegations as another falsehood from a drowning party.

The state Publicity Secretary of APC, Mr. Chris Finebone, said the party in the state was embarking on registration and revalidation of its members.
He explained that the exercise became necessary when a huge number of PDP members who were disenchanted in their former party decided to join the APC.
According to him, “I think they (PDP) have no answer to the fact that we are doing revalidation. The PDP in the state is lost about how we are doing the registration of our new members.
“We are doing this exercise based on request. There are a lot of PDP members that are no longer happy with the PDP and they are saying that they want to join us. So, we are using the opportunity to register them and revalidate the members of our members.