The All Progressives Congress has urged the Anambra State Police Command, Directorate of State Services and the Independent National Electoral Commission to intercept the Permanent Voter Cards allegedly recovered by hunters in a bush in Nnewi, Anambra State.
Reacting to the development in a statement on Wednesday, the APC Publicity Secretary in Anambra, Mr Okelo Madukaife, urged the security agencies to take custody and inventory of the strayed PVCs and compare notes with INEC, adding that this would prevent any record of over-voting during the elections.
Madukaife expressed worry that the said PVCs had been moved to an undisclosed location without any state actor involved in the sorting.
The statement read in part, “We have been alerted about a load of Permanent Voter Cards, said to have been recovered by hunters, and initially handed over to a radio house in Nnewi.
“We understand that the same have now been moved to another undisclosed location with non-state actors said to be sorting them out.
“Neither the Independent National Electoral Electoral Commmmision, nor the security agencies have so far been involved in the actions taken.
“Our initial thought is that there is something ominous about this breaking story, around a security item like PVCs, which could compromise the integrity of the electoral process in the locality, that requires total unraveling.
“Hence, our great party hereby evoke the authority of Anambra State Police Command and the Directorate of State Security to intercept, take custody, take inventory of these strayed PVCs and compare notes with INEC, which is not issuing cards at the moment to keep Anambra State unpolluted going into elections.
“It is our considered view that letting the cards fly unaccounted for, is to nurture a lose cannon as Anambra State will not wish to record any form of over-voting.
“We seize this opportunity to request INEC in Anambra State and nationally to put out the state and local government area tabulation of collected and uncollected PVCs and take the latter into the safe custody of the CBN vaults.
“We have implicit confidence in these agencies to promptly save the day from this red flag.”
