Shehu Sani argued that such a measure will tackle the issue of low turnout on election days in Nigeria
By Kehinde Okeowo
Human rights activist and former federal lawmaker, Shehu Sani has urged the Nigerian government to start sanctioning citizens who fail to vote after collecting the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The former senator who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in Nigeria’s Red Chamber made the call on Sunday via his official X handle.
According to him, the introduction of such a measure will tackle the issue of low turnout on election days.
Speaking via his verified social media page, Shehu Sani tweeted, “Heavy fine should be imposed for those who collected PVC but refused to vote.
“That is the best way to address the problem of low voter turnout.”
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Elections in Nigeria have been witnessing low turnouts at all levels in recent years .
For instance, in the 2023 presidential election, President Bola Tinubu, of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who was declared the winner of the election by INEC polled a total of 8,794,726 votes.
His closest challenger, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) got 6,984,520 votes.
Labour Party (LP) candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, garnered 6,101,533 votes, while the remaining 14 presidential aspirants got various numbers of votes from the electorates.
The total votes casted during the election amounted to 25.3 million votes which represented 27 per cent of the 93.469 million Nigerians who registered to vote.
After the presidential election, political analysts said the February 25 poll recorded one of the worst voters’ turnout in the history of Nigeria.
