INEC: Curiouser and Curiouser…

As about 56,431,255 Nigerians who were fortunate to collect their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) go to the poll on Saturday, it is pertinent to spare a thought for millions of other citizens who, due to no fault of theirs, could not lay hands of their cards as at Sunday, March 22, 2015 when the PVC collection exercise ended.
Many Nigerians in this category had, since late last year when the distribution of the PVCs commenced, visited their polling units, Ward collation centres, INEC local government area offices on countless occasions without sighting the cards.
At first, INEC in states like Lagos, Ogun, Edo, Abia and FCT among others said the laptops used to register these Nigerians crashed. As a result, they were asked to register afresh in January, 2015 and they did, hoping that INEC would thereafter, not disappoint.
Unfortunately, when the distribution of the PVCs commenced later, nothing changed. Visit upon visit to polling centres, ward collation centres and INEC local government area offices failed to yield any fruit.
The excuse INEC that officials at the places visited gave was that the cards were being expected from Abuja and that these Nigerians should keep visiting the INEC offices weekly to see if anything had changed.
Again, for the love of country, these Nigerians at great cost in terms of time, money and stress kept visiting the INEC offices. Sadly, they were not able to lay hands on their PVCs as at March 22, 2015, when the PVC collection exercise ended.
Guess the excuse by INEC officials: No new cards have been received from Abuja since the past three weeks and up to Wednesday, March 25, 2015. Their counsel:
None! Meaning that these Nigerians cannot vote come March 28 and April 11, 2015.