London, Jan. 4, 2019 (AltAfrica)-As Nigeria prepares for the much anticipated 2019 general election in less than two months now, Personal Voters Card, PVC, has become a goldmine next to petroleum product

As Lagosians troop out in mass to collect the all important PVC card, some staff of the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC are making brisk business by charging between 2-5 thousand naira to offer fast track service to electorates who are too busy to endure the long wait for the card or pressured by time.

Investigation by Alternativeafrica.com revealed that the these set of INEC officials have recruited some touts as agents to act as go between and offer the express service to waiting electorates desperate to beat the time.

In the video above shot by undercover for Alternativeafrica, the agent, George is seen negotiating terms and fees

After being tipped off by those who have paid for the service, undercover journalist for Alternativeafrica.com visited Lekki Epe expressway at a school close to Mobolaji Johnson estate where he met one George who is an agent working some of the INEC officials

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How it works: George as he identified himself will solicit customers selling the fast track service without the customer ( s) going through the rigour and stress of long queues.

In this second video, our undercover has scanned his temporary PVC card to a given phone number and George is gone to collect the Permanent PVC card from the INEC official inside the collection centre

The next step after accepting the offer is to scan your temporary PVC card to a given phone number, which belongs to an INEC official in charge of releasing the PVC card at the collection centre.

Once the temporary PVC card is scanned, the official who owns the number will quickly locate the PVC card and hands it over to George for onward transmission to the owner who would have paid the agreed sum between 2-10k naira depending the the power of bargaining

Our undercover observed that these syndicates deliberately make the PVC card collection exercise difficult by wasting time and attending to irrelevance to ensure long queues and enable them exploit innocent electorates

On this occasion, our undercover was able to negotiate to N2,000 and paid George with marked money as shown below.

Alternativeafrica.com can also reveal that the practice is not limited to the Lekki alone, it is wide spread in Lagos as confirmed by many who spoke to us