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Election: Close down institutions, allow students vote– Reps to FG
House of Representatives has urged the federal government to shutdown institutions of higher learning to enable the students collect their Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs and vote during the general elections.
The House specifically urged the government to temporarily close down the school during the exercise.
The parliament made the call through the National Universities Commission, NUC, the National Board for Technical Education, NBTE, the National Commission for Colleges of Education, NCCE and the Federal Ministry of Education.
The House also urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make special arrangements for the students to collect their PVCs.
The resolutions followed the consideration of a motion at the plenary by Hon. Kabir Ibrahim.
Presenting the motion, Ibrahim noted that, according to available statistics, there were over 2.1 million students currently studying in Nigerian Universities, while over 2.4 million were students in Polytechnics,
Monotechnics and Colleges of Education across the country.
He also noted that academic calendars of various tertiary institutions were structured in a way that most students are disenfranchised as school calendars do not take into consideration the timelines and date for elections.
He said: “This lack of flexibility makes it difficult for students to participate in the electoral process.
“3.8 million of the newly registered voters are students, accounting for 40.8 per cent of the total number of newly registered voters as stated by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, at the Commission’s 2022 third quarterly meeting with political parties in Abuja.
“These students who constitute 40.8 per cent of the newly registered voters, have their polling units sited in states outside their campuses, thereby necessitating traveling outside their respective institutions to vote in the 2023 elections.
“Tertiary institutions are not considering academic breaks for students during the general elections, despite having knowledge that most students registered outside their campuses during the continuous voter registration exercise, which took place during the prolonged Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike.
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