Fake voters cards are sweeping through Port Harcourt and other towns in the South South ahead of 2019 election. Fake or cloned Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) have swept through Rivers and a few other States in the South of Nigeria, Pulse can report.Residents of Port Harcourt, Asaba and Warri have been sending images of cloned PVCs across to our newsroom.Ekanem, a Port Harcourt resident, alleges that the fake PVCs are part of a broader plan by the opposition APC in Rivers to rig the next governorship and presidential votes. “It’s the APC that is mass producing them and distributing them all over the place”, Ekanem alleges, without providing that much of a proof to back his claim. “They want to take back Rivers by force but God will not allow that to happen”, he added.Wike says APC loves to rigRivers, a PDP controlled State, is governed by Barrister Nyesom Wike who has had public spats with his predecessor Rotimi Amaechi, a minister in the President Buhari cabinet and chieftain of the APC. Wike often alleges that the APC government at the center has perfected plans to rig elections in Rivers. “The plan of INEC and its cohorts to transplant the Edo State rigging model in Rivers State will fail, the people of the state will resist them. “Anyone planning to steal our mandate will be resisted, nobody can intimidate us, those having such plan will rig themselves into the water,’’ Wike had said in the build up to legislative elections in his State in 2016.Pulse contacted APC spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi for a response but he wasn’t immediately available for comments.’Fake PVCs won’t change anything’However, Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi told Pulse that anyone cloning PVCs is wasting their time. “Anybody with a fake PVC is just wasting his time. They can’t use fake PVC to vote. It’s impossible. I don’t know how the fake PVC came about. I don’t know who…I mean, this is the first time I’m hearing about fake PVC. “If the PVC is not given by INEC, you cannot use it. I can assure you of that. Because our smart card reader will expose it. And I’m sure that whoever has a fake PVC will not even have the courage to vote on election day because he’s going to be caught and handed over to the police”, Oyekanmi said. Nigerians will head to the polling units to elect political leaders in 2019.The presidential and National Assembly elections have been slated for February 16, 2019, while elections for State governors, State house of assembly representatives and council representatives will take place on March 2, 2019.
