A Federal High court sitting in Abuja has been asked to stop the February 2014 general election.
The plaintiffs in the suit – Asogo Torkuma Venatius, Ola Solomon Oluwasanmi,Sunday Attah and Philip Agbese – in suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/DW/2015, are seeking the nod of the court to postpone the elections until all eligible voters have collected their Permanent Voter Cards.
In the suit, filed through their counsel, Amobi Nzelu, they are also asking the court to order the use of Temporary Voter Cards for those who are unable to collect their PVCs.
In the suit, they begged the court to order the postponement of the general election pending the provision of the PVC to them since the Independent National Electoral Commission is under statutory obligation to provide same to the plaintiff.
In the statement of claim, the plaintiffs said that contrary to the announcement by the electoral umpire in 2014 that it will issue all eligible voters with PVCs for the February 2015 elections, about half of eligible voters are yet to collect theirs.
They further argued that few day to the elections, INEC was yet to produce and distribute voter cards to them and other eligible voters.
They said, “Till date, over 40 percent of eligible voters who were registered by the 1 Defendant (INEC) for the up coming general elections were yet to receive their Permanent Voter’s Card.
“There have been several protest all over the country against the decision of the 1 Defendant to go on with the conduct of the general elections without distributing the Permanent voters Card to millions of registered voters all over the country.”
They told the court in the suit that if he election was allowed to go on, millions of eligible voters stand the risk of being disenfranchised.
The Electoral Act does not make the PVC a condition precedent for registered voters to cast their votes at the general elections.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the case.