Pentecostal churches nationwide would press on their members to go in search of permanent voters’ cards (PVC) to enable them cast votes in 2023 massively.
To achieve this, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), the umbrella body of all Pentecostal churches in Nigeria, has declared June 26, a PVC Sunday in the country.
The PFN said this is due to mounting apathy of Christians in Nigeria over their political destiny and voting.
Zilly Aggrey, the national vice president of the PFN, disclosed these moves during the weekend, while speaking with journalists at the Port Harcourt International Airport in Omagwa.
According to Aggrey, the PFN has mandated all church leaders and pastors across the country to demand for the PVC from all its members on Sunday.
The church leaders, the PFN boss stressed, should politely ask or demand for the evidence of their registration cards but should not turn them back from worshiping God.
According to Zilly Aggrey, the need to ask for the PVC across the country from church members has become inevitable and imperative because of the growing apathy among Nigerian Christians in politics.
The Nigeria Christians he noted, had remained unconcern on who governs them and the country and in the process, allow incompetent and bad leadership in the country.
The Nigeria Christian, he disclosed, has the population and what it takes to vote good people into office across the country but had remained apolitical and uncommitted while the country had gone through misrule, decay, underdeveloped and in the process mortgage the future of the country, the children and the unborn ones.
The PFN PVC drive, he stressed, was not about religion, race or ethnicity, but to make for good governance. He stressed the need to love Nigeria and to make them know that we have no other country but Nigeria.
According to him, the demand for the PVC across the churches in the country will continue until the 2023 general election is over.
Nigeria, he pointed out, has all it takes to be a first class nation, but for the bad leadership that he said the masses especially Christians had allowed to come to power and remain.
“Nigeria has what it takes to better herself because as at today, no good university in the United Kingdom (UK) or America without a Nigeria Professor. Nigeria has all the manpower within and without, but why are we backward?
“Nigeria is the 8th largest oil producing nation in the world, but why are we without energy and electricity?” This he pointed out must be changes and that is what the PFN is all about and nothing less.
Meanwhile, most churches have started drumming it into the ears of their members every Sunday to go get their PVCs. Some churches have made arrangements for registration officers to come to their church premises on Sundays to register members and others willing to use the facilities.
Some such as Omega Pentecostal Ministries (OPM) have approved allowances to officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to come and work on Sundays.
When contacted, the Rivers State INEC Public Affairs Officer, Geraldine Ekelemu, said INEC was not doing weekend registration.
Meanwhile, INEC Rivers State that had announced the arrival of eight additional machines and mobile system of registration has started daily registration updates.
The PAO had issued Thursday 23, 2022 update as 3557 in the 23 local council areas of Rivers State and the headquarters in Port Harcourt.
