A hunter has discovered a bag filled with thousands of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) in a forest in Anambra State.
The discovery of the PVCs comes barely some days before the presidential and National Assembly Elections, which will be held this Saturday, 25 February.
Premium Times gathered the hunter stumbled on the bag containing the PVCs during his hunting exercise on Tuesday in a forest in Akamili, Umudim, which is a community in the Nnewi North Local Government Area of Anambra.
He took the PVCs to the premises of Authority FM, a local radio station in the community, apparently to publicise the discovery to the owners of the PVCs for collection.
The manager of the Authority FM, Charles Ede, confirmed this to Premium Times, Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Ede said he and some officials of the radio station took the PVCs to the Nnewi North council headquarters, but that the council officials did not allow them inside the premises or speak with them.
He said they later took the PVCs to the palace of the traditional ruler of the community in the council area.
“Residents are there now collecting the PVCs,” Mr Ede said.
Ikenna Okonkwo, another official of the radio station, in a viral video clip circulating on Facebook, said they had checked about three per cent of the entire PVCs brought by the hunter and noticed that the cards belong to people mainly from the council area.
“This is wickedness. Thousands of PVCs here,” he said, dipping his hands in a bucket where some of the cards were kept.
“These guys (residents) have looked for their PVCS. They have lost hope (that) they have PVCs,” Mr Okonkwo lamented.
The official said the discovery was a confirmation that people were working to sabotage the elections in the South-east.
“We have heard this rumour of people trying to cut out the South-east’s voting strength. We heard this rumour that they were discarding PVCs of those who are from the South-east. We saw that in Lagos (State) some months ago and we never believed it. But seeing this now is a testament.
“Of course, there is large voter apathy in the South-east, but then, with this wickedness that we are seeing here, it is quite obvious,” Mr Okonkwo added.
Kingsley Ikechukwu, INEC spokesperson in Anambra State, did not respond to calls and a text message seeking comments from him about the incident.
