The Independent National Electoral Commission said it doesn’t have the power to compel universities to declare holidays in order to enable students to vote during the forthcoming general elections.
The media aide to the chairman of the commission, Rotimi Oyekanmi, stated this in an interview on Friday.
This is against the backdrop of calls from several quarters that universities should declares holidays for students to collect their Permanent Voter Cards and also vote in the coming polls.
For instance, a member of the House of Representatives, Kabir Tukura, had on Thursday moved a motion titled,‘Urgent Need to Give the Students of Tertiary Institutions of Learning in Nigeria an Opportunity to Vote in the General Elections.’
Tukura noted that the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, had said that 3.8 million of the newly registered voters are students, accounting for 40.8 per cent of the total number of newly registered voters.
He expressed the worry that academic calendars of various tertiary institutions are structured “in a way that most students are disenfranchised, as school calendars do not take into consideration the timelines and date for elections.”
The lawmaker said, “The House is concerned that 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 travelling outside their respective institutions to vote in the 2023 elections.
But INEC chairman’s media aide, Oyekanmi said it is beyond INEC to dictate to varsities on how to run their calender.
