By Angela Atabo
A youth advocacy group, YES Project says it plans to mobilise at least 60 per cent of Nigerian youths to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) toward active participation in the 2023 general election.
Mr Oche-Precious Edeh, the Founder and Executive Directors,YES Project, said this at the “Value Your Vote Naija ‘Campaign news conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
Edeh said the move was imperative to galvanise the inclusion of youths in politics.
“Nigeria is a country with around 200 million population with young people around 15 to 35 per cent, accounting for the highest demography of the population.
He said that through the effort of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as well as civil society organisations like YES Project, a lot of young people participated in the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR).
According to him, the new register witnessed the registration of youths between ages of 18 to 34 making up a total of 7,286,871 accounting for 76.56 per cent of the total newly registered voters of 9,518,188.
He said that although the feat was important, however, getting registered was a first step in the electoral compliance process but registered voters could still be disenfranchised if Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were not collected and votes cast.
“It is quite shocking when in September this year ,INEC confirmed that the number of uncollected PVCs is over 20 million.
“There is need for us to tactfully engage the youths through community to ensure they complete the the electoral process of transitioning from PVC registration to collection and voting .
“With a total of 93,522,272 the number of uncollected PVCs account from 19.2 per cent registered voters ;we need to keep the pace of engaging citizens especially youths in politics.
“To change this trend and ensure that 60 per cent young voters collect thier PVCs and vote ,YES Project came up with various initiatives to surmount the challenge,” he said.
Edeh said the group launched the Value Your Vote campaign in August, toward PVCs collection mobilisation and through the support of Yiaga Africa the project would run till February 2023.
He said that YES Project carried out a survey to know how to tackle the challenges of voter apathy and drafted some interventions.
He listed social media promotion and door to door PVC mobilisation campaign as one of such interventions to create more awareness on PVC collection.
Mr Osere Daniels, Board Member, YES Project, called on Nigerians especially youths to believe in the electoral system, expressing optimism that it would work in 2023.
Daniels encouraged citizens to forget the notion that their votes do not count because it was no longer true.
He said the drive to make youths collect their PVCs was to make Nigeria better for all citizens.(NAN)
