By Gabriel Ewepu and Ulebor Favour, ABUJA

Election observer, Yiaga Africa, yesterday raised concerns over issues that may impede the polls on Saturday, including current economic hardship, inaccessibility to Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, insecurity, possible vote trading, challenges experienced during mock accreditation, and others.

Raising the concerns at a briefing in Abuja yesterday, the Chairman, of Watching The Vote, WTV working group, Yaiga Africa, Dr Hussaini Abdu, and  Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said these issues might impact the conduct of credible elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, across the country.

Hussaini said:  “With barely 48 hours to the Presidential elections, Nigerians are currently experiencing untold economic hardship caused by the recent scarcity of new Naira notes and perennial fuel scarcity. This has led to a series of protests in different parts of the country.

“This growing discontent amongst citizens may lead to voter apathy in the form of ‘protest’ which will eventually lead to low voter turnouts. We are also worried that citizens facing these forms of adversities going into the election may be unable to make informed choices at the polls.

“Yiaga Africa notes that a persisting array of complaints about uncollected PVCs largely due to the unavailability of the cards is worrisome. Yiaga Africa is concerned that a good number of eligible voters may be disenfranchised for no fault of theirs.”

In addition, it is worrisome that the Commission is yet to release the list of PVCs collected per polling unit nationwide.

“The data on PVCs collected per polling unit remains important in determining the conclusiveness of the election as this figure is expected to be used in applying the margin of lead principle.

“Relocation of Voters to New Polling Units May lead to Potential Disenfranchisement; The mock accreditation revealed that, in an attempt by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to decongest some of its oversized polling units, the commission relocated voters to new polling units. However, voters approached their polling units for mock accreditation before realizing they have been relocated to new polling units.

“While we commend the commission’s recent efforts by providing information on how voters can identify their polling units, we are concerned that not every affected voter may be able to identify their voting locations before Election Day. This will constitute panic, agitations and potential disenfranchisement on Election Day.

“All through the pre-election period, security challenges have consistently reared their ugly head. Beyond the existing security challenges of insurgency, banditry and kidnapping, the prevailing security situation leading to the 2023 Presidential election has been further escalated by the tense political atmosphere.

“The current Naira redesign policy and scarcity of legal tender are aimed to fight vote trading on Election Day, the prevailing hardship it has come with may even make it easier for voters to relinquish their votes in exchange for the scarce currency.”

He (Hussaini) also disclosed that the Yiaga Africa team will deploy 3,836 observers nationwide for the elections.

“For the Presidential election, Yiaga Africa will deploy a total of 3,836 observers throughout the country. This consists of 3,014 stationary Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) observers deployed to a random representative statistical sample of 1,507 polling units; 822 roving observers across the 774 LGAs and 36 states; and 8 Working Group members who run real-time election analysis.’’