Adetokunbo Pearse, a PDP stalwart in Lagos State has said he would sue INEC if the electoral body fails to issue him his permanent voters card (PVC) quickly and resolve issues with others with similar problems.

Mr Pearse, the Convener, Reset Lagos and chairmanship contender in the aborted October 16 PDP State Congress, gave the threat on Sunday.

“If INEC does not give out PVCs to people that applied for it in the next three months, it should be held responsible for suppressing the votes,” Mr Pearse stated

“We will not go into the election under such circumstances. We are shouting now so that before we get to the middle of 2022, every eligible applicant for PVC must have their PVCs.

“The cards should be produced right away; otherwise we will take INEC to court.”

“It is almost a little too late for INEC to start production and distribution of PVCs in preparation for the 2023 general elections,’’ Mr Pearse stressed.

The Lagos politician alleged that INEC’s lethargy towards issuing PVC “is a ploy to keep people disenfranchised and an attempt to suppress the people’s democratic rights.”

“Why does the commission want to wait until a few months before the election before printing PVCs? The delay will bring the rush and stress from which we are trying to run,’’ Mr Pearse said.

Arguing further, Mr Pearse cited an example about issuance of ATM cards by banks which used to take up to one week after the request was made, but now took only a few minutes to be issued.

“Technology has gone so far. I don’t know what INEC’s challenge is. Five months after commencing nationwide CVR, not a single person has been issued the PVC. This is rather too slow and unimpressive.”

“INEC is yet to issue me the PVC I registered for since 2012 registration exercise,” he continued. “It has not produced my PVC and I did everything you can imagine as a governorship candidate in 2019. I could not get my PVC till today.”

“I even called INEC a few days ago, and I was told it was not ready. Meanwhile, it will not allow me to do a new registration. We must begin to shout now. I plan to do a real protest on this soon,’’ he added.

Mr Pearse suggested that INEC should allow people with Temporary Voter Cards (TVC) to vote in 2023 if it failed to produce PVCs since there was no difference between information on the TVCs and those on the PVCs.

He also urged INEC to speed up its registration and decentralise the production and issuance of the cards to zonal offices to avoid crises.

“INEC should take a clue from the banking sector to make the printing of the PVCs in the country to be fast like is witnessed in the banks today; we need to emulate good innovations,’’ he said.

“It is a negligence of duty to expect that all PVCs will be produced in Abuja and taken to each state; it is a clog in the wheel of electoral progress that will never work,’’ he added.

NAN