Felix Ikem, Nsukka
A few months to 2019 general elections, Chairman of Nsukka Local Government Area, Chief Patrick Omeje, has frowned at the attitude of some people in his locality who are yet to collected their Permanent Voter Cards, stressing that over 17,000 PVCs remained unclaimed at Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office, in Nsukka Local Government Area.
Omeje made this known at the weekend at the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) secretariat, at Nsukka, during the declaration of House of Assembly aspirant Hon. Celestine Ogbu to contest for Nsukka West constituency in the state’s House of Assembly.
He said that permanent voter cards remained the only tool to be used to vote the candidates of your choice to power.
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While urging residents of the area that were yet to collect their PVCs to go to INEC office in Nsukka and claim them, he pointed out that the council had concluded arrangement to employ the services of churches, traditional rulers, town unions, schools and town criers’ to make wide announcements for the collection of the unclaimed permanent voters cards in the locality.
He noted that the state government gave an ultimatum of two weeks for the unclaimed PVCs to be collected by its authentic owners while the collection has to be guided seriously to ensure that fake owners would not have ways to collect the PVCs.
In a chat with newsman shortly after declaration, the House of Assembly aspirant, Chief Celestine Ogbu, said that he would partner with the local government council to ensure that the unclaimed 17,000 PVCs were shared to their authentic owners in the shortest possible time to beat the ultimatum of the state government, adding that he joined the race in Nsukka West constituency for true representation and sense of belonging in equity, fair play and justice in synergy with the state government agenda on developmental projects.
Ogbu, a former leader of Nsukka Local Government Legislative Council, said that power could not belong to the people when there was no interface with the constituents.
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He, however, assured that he would maintain constant town hall meetings to collate data for inclusion in the annual budget of the state government.
“If given the mandate, I will introduce new approach to legislative representation, partnering with the local government to co-fund projects for the constituency, key into the global trend of de-emphasise oil economy and embracing knowledge driven economy by having Information communication technology (ICT) centres in the 11 wards of the constituency” he noted.
The aspirant offered to expand his already existing Celon education foundation to cover the 11 wards of the constituency to ensure that indigent students do not drop out of school for lack of funds.