• Urges INEC to allow registered Nigerians vote without PVCs
•Decries continuous incarceration of El-Rufai
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
Founder of the ANAP Foundation, Atedo Peterside, yesterday urged Nigerians, especially young people, to participate actively in future elections, arguing that a massive voter turnout would overwhelm vote buyers and make large-scale election rigging significantly more difficult.
Besides , the founder of Stanbic IBTC urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow all registered voters to cast their ballots even without Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television, Peterside dismissed claims that votes do not count in Nigeria, insisting that politicians would not invest heavily in campaigns and vote buying if elections were predetermined.
He maintained that Nigeria’s demographic advantage lies with its youth, who have the capacity to shape electoral outcomes if they register and vote in large numbers.
“If votes don’t matter, nobody will campaign. Nobody will even bother to speak to you. In fact, the larger the number of voters that turn out, the more difficult it is to rig an election. Again, the larger the number of voters that turn out, the more money you have to spend if you’re trying to buy votes because you may just be overwhelmed,” he said.
According to him, Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 25 constitute a formidable voting bloc capable of determining the outcome of elections across the country.
“If the young people between 18 and 25 all decide to vote in one election for one candidate, be it in the presidency, Senate or House of Representatives, most constituencies, their selection will win that election. You would have to do massive rigging to disqualify all their votes because they are the majority,” Peterside stated.
He explained that this informed the voter mobilisation campaign being driven by ‘GoNigeria’, a non-partisan civic initiative of the ANAP Foundation aimed at encouraging first time voters and other eligible Nigerians to register ahead of the 2027 general election.
Peterside welcomed INEC’s decision to extend the Continuous Voter Registration exercise, saying the electoral commission deserved commendation for giving more Nigerians the opportunity to enrol before the deadline.
“So let’s applaud them for doing something positive because some of us feared that INEC was in a hurry to impose a deadline, lock out all these people and possibly reduce the number of registered voters by making sure that many of the younger ones are disenfranchised.
“I think many of these deadlines are much too early. The 10th of July was too restrictive. It was never feasible. So adding two more weeks is something positive,” he said.
While applauding the extension, Peterside argued that voter registration would have little meaning if registered citizens were prevented from voting because they had not collected their PVCs.
He urged INEC to adopt a system that would enable registered voters to download their voter credentials or use alternative means of identification on election day, stressing that responsibility for making PVCs available rests with the electoral commission and not voters.
“If somebody has registered and in the past he didn’t have his voter’s card, but he has a passport or he has the name, I think he should be allowed to vote. Because if he didn’t collect his PVC, that should not disqualify him.
“If somebody has registered, the responsibility for getting his PVC to him should be INEC’s. Allow him to download his PVC and go and vote. Otherwise, the PVC is being used as an instrument to disenfranchise selected voters, and it happens massively across the country, and it must stop,” he argued.
Peterside further alleged that the process for distributing PVCs has over the years been susceptible to abuse, claiming that voter cards belonging to certain groups could sometimes be deliberately withheld, thereby denying eligible citizens the opportunity to vote.
Beyond electoral administration, Peterside said Nigeria’s democracy requires broader institutional reforms, identifying electoral reform, judicial reform, improved security and protection of freedom of speech as the four pillars necessary for credible elections.
He argued that insecurity discourages voter participation while restrictions on free expression undermine democratic competition.
On the judiciary, Peterside criticised the prolonged incarceration of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai despite being granted bail, saying the conditions attached to his release were practically impossible to fulfil.
“For me, it’s a national scandal. The conditions that were granted by the judges are basically impossible for him to meet. So he has been incarcerated for several months by the judiciary by cleverly imposing bail conditions that no human being can meet,” he said.
Peterside warned that democracy could not flourish where political opponents were effectively detained through unrealistic bail conditions.
“You’ve got to give your political opponents a voice as well. We can’t have a democracy where people are locked up endlessly for one reason or the other and then claim to be conducting free and fair elections,” he added.
He, however, urged Nigerians who have attained voting age to take advantage of the extended voter registration window, insisting that participation in the electoral process remains the most effective way for citizens to influence governance and determine the country’s future.
