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The All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of buying permanent voters cards from Nigerians.
Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement issued in Lagos, alleged that a company, Agro-Allied Communities Service Nigeria Limited, “has been formed ostensibly to provide 50,000 Naira loan each to ‘empower’ women.”
He said that anyone who wanted the loan was made to provide her PVC as ‘collateral’, “which is basically the essence of the establishment of the company that is supposedly a private concern but in reality a PDP front to mop up PVCs, especially in opposition strongholds”.
Urging members of the public not to sell the PVCs, he said that APC members have “alerted us to the fact that PDP agents have been operating in all villages between Kobape and Orile-Imo along the Sagamu-Abeokuta Expressway in Ogun State, giving 10,000 Naira to each poor villager and collecting their PVCs. The PDP agents are also promising each villager a monthly stipend of 10,000 Naira if and when their party assumes office in the state.
The party also said that some Immigration personnel, acting under the guise of arresting illegal aliens with voter cards, are dispossessing a lot of unsuspecting locals in the northern part of the country of their PVCs. These unsuspecting people, it was alleged, are arrested and their cards seized, all in an attempt to disenfranchise them.
The statement added: “This act of desperation is totally unacceptable and must stop forthwith. Every voter should be allowed to exercise his or her franchise in accordance with his/her conscience, without intimidation or inducement,” it said.”We hope this is not part of the reasons that the PDP relentlessly campaigned for a postponement of the elections, so it can engage in PVC purchase and the disenfranchisement of innocent Nigerians through harassment and intimidation.”