…task party faithful on PVC collection
By Olanrewaju Adesanya
Lawmakers across the forty constituencies in Lagos State have emphasized the need for electorates, to get their Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC) and vote Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President at the general elections, so as to make Lagos template a national one.
The lawmakers in a simultaneous stakeholders parley, with the theme -2023 General Election: The Imperatives of Permanent Voter’s Card(PVC), all tasks the All Progressives Congress party members, to go out and get their PVCs so as to be able to elect their preferred candidates to represent their interests.
According to all of the lawmakers the PVC in the peoples possession, remains the only power they have to effect the desired development in all spheres of life.
They also charged those who are yet to pick up the PVC to get it before the process is halted.
The Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa in a chat with newsmen after the parley which was the 8th edition of the annual event, emphasized further that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s template of development in Lagos State remains functional till date.
Adding that with the people’s continued support for him through the use of their PVCs to vote him in as President, Nigeria will experience rapid and seamless development in all sectors.
Obasa maintained that :“The only power our people have in the coming election is to get their PVC, so that they can state their own mind during the election.
“The people are well prepared to come out enmasse to vote in the coming elections and I have no doubt they will continue to support us and our leader Asiwaju in the coming election.
“We are very happy with their mood and their consciousness.
Obasa stated further that victory is ascertained for the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu owing to various existing indicators all across the country, which favours the APC.
“We have a lot of reasons to believe that we are going to win, we have the structures all over the federation.
“We have a leader who has done it before and the records are all there, he has served as a governor of the state, his achievements are here to be seen and he created a very strong platform for the development of Lagos and we are still using it up to this country.
“While he was in office, we had high employment rate, infrastructural developments, so many things we can talk about so we have no doubts.
“If you want to elect people to represent your interest, you have to base it on capability, achievement and experience.
“So amongst those coming out let’s see who among them can stand or has credentials to compare with Asiwaju.”
Obasa further charged the people to go out and get their PVCs, stressing that it affords them the opportunity to sustain democracy.
“We all need to contribute our own quota to sustain this democracy .
“ In sustaining it election is one of the major factor of democracy, so PVC collection is to encourage people to participate, democracy is all about the people.
Commenting on the sustainability of the stakeholders parley concept, which happens to have been initiated by him, Obasa harps on the fact that it is conceptualized to bridge the gap between the representatives and their constituents on a regular basis to create a synergy.
“I think this sustainable and we will sustain it till the next Assembly, even thereafter people would sustain it.
“It creates an avenue to meet with the people who elected you, so that it won’t be only when an election is coming that you meet with them, with this opportunity you can always interact with your people, that is what we have done today and we hope it continues.
Stakeholders in Agege constituency 1 turned out enmasse for the parley, to further propagate the message of how imperative it is for all to have their PVCs.
Representatives of the youths, the elderly and from the none Yoruba speaking communities in the constituency and even beyond all stated one way or the other by which they benefitted from the acclaimed good representation of Obasa.
Mr Felix who represented the Lagos INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner also call on registrants to make it a duty to pick up their PVCs.
“We will work round the clock to ensure registration and collection of PVCs till few days to the election date.”
Standard flag bearers of the party’s ticket in Agege politics all graced the occasion, not leaving out the chairmen of the two local government areas in Agege federal constituency, Mr Ganiyu Egunjobi Agege LGA and Mr Babatunde Johnson.
In Agege constituency 2, Hon. Oluyinka Ogundimu harped on the importance of PVC collection, noting that the era of playing games with the process is over, so electorates should seize the golden opportunity to elect their preferred candidates into leadership positions.
He made the assertion at a well attended parley held within the Orile Agege council secretariat, while flanked on his left side of the rostrum by the incumbent member of the Federal House of Representatives Hon. Samuel Adejare and host of other important dignitaries.
Ogundimu who was beaming with smiles all through the parley, made reference to the import of the gathering citing the Agege pencinema bridge as one of the products of having good representatives who can present the people’s interests always in the most articulate manner.
“We need to sensitize our people to register for their Permanent Voters Card and for those that have registered to also go there to pick their cards, because there is no essence of doing registration and your cards are out there waiting for collection and you are not there pick it up.
“The key aspect is that they have a decision to make, the voters are kings.
“They are the ones to make the decision of whom they want to vote for and if they don’t make this decision we have to let them know the dangers attached to it.
“We know that early next year is the general election and they have to be equipped to make informed decisions that affect their lives and that of their children.
“We live among our people and we also know their needs but we also still listen to them.
“The by-product of this that I will tell you is the Pencinema bridge in Agege, which remains a landmark achievement to our people in Agege because we’ve been almost cut off from the rest of state.
“It has always been a bottle neck to leave Agege it takes us hours, imagine the waste of time, resources and everything but now it is just a coastal road moving from Agege to Ikeja.
I never knew it is so close, in less than ten minutes from Agege you are in Ikeja and you can network and navigate to anywhere you want to go.
“That is one major one and there are other Infrastructural works carried out for our people, behind us here there are major canals that has been threatening the lives and properties of our people.
The reconstruction of which was first started by Hon. Adejare while in office and we continue from there, the work is still ongoing and we now have rest of mind when it rains compared to previous times when one could not have a good sleep owing the flooding that reoccur oftentimes.
“That among many that I could say of which their needs have been met and we will continue to do that.
“The people are ready to make decisions that is good for them as it will affect them either positively or negatively depending on if it was right or wrong, nobody can compel or force them to make a decision, we can only pacify them but they know what is good for them and I know they will do that.
The INEC woman at the parley Mrs. Nike Lawal sensitized eligible voters as regards the various upgrades and advancement of data capturing devices to make the process more seamless.
She also noted that the existing polling units, recently got increased to 696 in Agege all geared towards bringing the voting points closer to the electorates, to further make the process less cumbersome.
According to Mrs Nike Lawal a total of 14, 434 people have been registered in the CVR exercise which by INEC’s dictate should be closed on 30th June, recently in Agege, with 8,323 male registrants and 6102 female registrants.
In Shomolu constituency 1, Hon. Rotimi Olowo fondly called E-Money by his followers within the APC family and others outside the party fold also hosted the teeming members of his constituency in the Methodist Church Hall, a spacious venue of the stakeholders parley which was filled to its brim.
He also echoed the need for registrants to go pick up their PVCs, noting that it is the only tool needed to voice their feelings and make good choices.
According Olowo the newly introduced Bi-modal Voter Authentication System (BVAS) will amongst others aid the acceptability of the process, given an already heightened electoral consciousness of the people.
He pleaded with the people to participate in the ongoing CVR exercise, so as to generate valid PVCs to further enrich the electoral process.
Olowo also encouraged the party faithful to cast their votes for Asiwaju’s presidency to be a reality, noting that given his antecedents Nigeria will be a lot more better with him in charge of the reins of power.
Many of the stakeholders, who spoke so glowingly about the lawmaker’s many efforts geared toward ensuring better welfare for his constituents, stated that he has successfully cast his name in gold in Shomolu/Bariga polity.