An official said a staggering amount of the uncollected PVCs belonged to women, who are important participants in elections.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has decried the huge number of old and new PVCs not collected at INEC offices in the 20 local government areas of Lagos State.
Olusegun Agbaje, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, said a staggering amount of the uncollected PVCs belonged to women, who are important participants in elections.
Mr Agbaje spoke at the State Level CSO Engagement Visit organised by the Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF) powered by the EU-Support Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN) in collaboration with INEC.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the engagement is: "Women's Political Participation and Inclusion and 2023 General Elections."
"Permanent Voter Card (PVC) is the sole instrument required from the voter to participate in an election, it is an important eligibility instrument for voting without which no citizen would be allowed to partake in an election," said Mr Agbaje.
"However, the total number of uncollected old PVCs in the state is 928,362 as at (of) 5th Sept. 5, no doubt, the uncollected PVCs for women may be in the neighborhood of 436,451 (47 per cent).
"Meanwhile, the total number of uncollected New PVCs is 21,352 out of 34,242 received PVCs, while the rest of the new PVCs for the 2021/22 registration exercise is being awaited.
"The implication of this is that the commission is having a staggering number of PVCs that should be collected by the women and other eligible voters to enable them massively participate in the forthcoming 2033 general elections," Mr Agbaje said.
According to him, it is imperative that the women folk, particularly the Nigerian Women Trust Fund under the Gender Election Watch (GEW) and others rise up to the challenge to ensure the PVCs are collected without further delay.
Women flag-bearers
Mr Agbaje, who expressed dissatisfaction over the low number of women flag-bearers in the forthcoming general elections, said women needed support, and encouragement and needed to be bold to fight like men to take leadership and political positions.
"We have fewer women than men going for elective positions (in 2023). It is not too good, we have to continue to improve through this kind of engagement so that in future elections, we will have more women coming out for elective positions," he added.
The INEC boss called for the mobilisation of women for PVC collection and encouraging them to vote in the 2023 general elections, saying that INEC had taken a number of measures aimed at ensuring the smooth conduct of the general elections.
Mr Agbaje said that the just-concluded Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) captured 12,298,944 out of which a total of 6,224,866 were females while male registrants were 6,074,078.
In her welcome remarks, Mufuliat Fijabi, the Chief of Executive Officer, NWTF, said the main objective of the engagement was to build synergy and cooperation between the group, INEC and other critical players like CSOs, religious and traditional leaders.
Mrs Fijabi said the engagement was to see how all players could work together to improve women's political participation in the country.
"There is a need for more synergy in advocating for more women in leadership and political positions and the commitment to achieving this vision," Mrs Fijabi said.
On the overview of the project, Malliya Manu, the NWTF Programme Manager, said the EU was worried about the low participation of women in decision-making processes in Nigeria, saying the project wanted to ensure an increase in women's representation.
Ms Manu said that critical players like wives of governors, CSOs, religious and traditional leaders, INEC, and others should step up games to bring in more women in politics.
According to her, the average women participation in politics is 25 per cent globally, about 22 per cent in Africa, and 4.8 per cent in Nigeria.
She said that Nigeria could not have a strong and balanced democracy because of marginalisation of women in politics, saying the just concluded political parties' primaries had shown a decrease in women as flag-bearers.
Barriers
Ms Manu highlighted barriers against women to include lack of effective government will to implement international conventions, money politics, and system of godfatherism, exclusion of women in parties' leadership positions as well a patronage-based political system.
"Nigeria should be able to ensure 25 per cent of women representation in Africa. By 2027, we want to see more women being elected as candidates of political parties," she said.
Speaking, Victoria Eta-Messi, the Deputy Director, Gender Relations, Gender and Inclusivity Department, INEC, said "the commission plans to enlighten stakeholders on the INEC gender policy, the objective of the policy, and the implementation of the policy which is mandatory for the commission and other stakeholders in the electoral process."
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Mrs Eta-Messi said that not much was achieved during the party primaries by women as many could not clinch tickets to contest the 2023 elections.
"So, already, it is not a very promising outlook with regard to women candidates. What we want to achieve now is to ensure and to see that many women turn out to vote.
"Beyond 2023, we also hope that those lapses that were noticed for the 2023 general elections would have been bridged and all barriers would have been addressed and taken care of so that many more women will participate in the electoral space."
Hilda Nwanekwu, Executive Director, Initiatives for Sustaining Gender Empowerment, stressed the need for more bonding among women to take over leadership and political positions.
Also, Angela Daniel, Executive Director, Women Entrepreneur Association of Nigeria as well as STAGE for Women Development Initiative, decried that political parties had continued to refuse to admit women, urging stakeholders to give opportunities to women.
NAN reports that the event had in attendance, various women leaders advocating the inclusion of women and People Living With Disabilities (PLWDs) in Nigeria. (NAN)
