Obi wants a break for students to let them vote

•says their role is crucial

Labor Party presidential candidate Mr Peter Obi has called on Nigerian universities to ensure they observe breaks that will allow students to return home and vote in the general election on February 25.

He said that the students who were at home during the registration exercise are a blockage that cannot be ignored in the election process and thus the university authorities should allow their participation in the elections.

He said Nigerian students eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election should be encouraged to exercise their constitutional right to elect their leaders.

Mr Obi, who also expressed concerns about the inability of some Nigerians in a few states, particularly Lagos state, to collect their permanent voter cards, PVCs said in a statement issued by the Obi-Datti office.

Obi was speaking Monday evening during a meeting with observers from the European Union, EU-EOM Election Observation Mission.

The Labor Party candidate said: “I am sure INEC will do the right thing. I’m sure the universities will give them the chance to vote. It’s important because it’s about their future.

“This election is about these young people and I am sure they will allow them to vote. We will continue to tell them along the way.”

Speaking of the challenges associated with PVC collection, he said: “It’s important to me now to get people to collect their PVC. There are some areas where people are still complaining about their PVCs being rejected for some reason.

“INEC needs to give them attention. But I have to give credit to INEC for extending the PVC collection date, but again I urge them to make sure people collect their PVC. This election is very important for Nigerians.

“It is an existential election. We want everyone who has signed up to participate.”

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The national leader of the Labor Party, Barr. Julius Abure, highlighting the role of Nigerian youth in the presidential election, said: “It is the youth who bear the brunt of mismanagement, so this election is about them.

“When voter registration was going on, most college students were at home and doing their registration at home. At the moment they are in school and if they stay in school during the elections it means they will be denied the chance to vote.

“So we are asking that a week’s break be given as a holiday so that they can go and vote. You would have excluded them if they have their PVC and are not in the place where they can use it to vote.

“In general, the country is unsafe. We want security to improve before and during elections, because if security is not guaranteed, we could end up with a situation where legitimate voters may be afraid to come out and vote on election days. So there must be guarantees that security is strengthened.

“So we need the security services, the commander-in-chief to give continuous assurances that security will be guaranteed on that day. And also the security agencies themselves, because we’ve had situations where the security agencies have been used to manipulate electoral fraud or create an environment conducive to election manipulation or in some cases to facilitate vote buying.”

Earlier, EU EOM Chief Observer Barry Andrews had told party leaders that their visit was a routine visit to communicate with leading presidential candidates and other stakeholders in the February 25 presidential election.

He said: “It is part of our job, we have meetings with all stakeholders in this very important election here in Nigeria. We met key participants today, including the Labor Party. We also met APC and PDP candidates. We also met with the Secretary of State, the Vice President, civil society and the media earlier today.

“What we are doing is trying to develop an image of transparency, inclusiveness and credibility of the elections. And we will report that two days after the election in a preliminary report at a press conference on February 27.

“We are at a very early stage. We have meetings and people have a collective sense that they are deepening the roots of democracy and we think we can play a role, but we will not draw conclusions until after the elections.”