January 25, 2018

No fewer than 103, 503 Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) are yet to be claimed by registered voters in Nasarawa State.

Mr Opaleke Shola-Otolorin, Administrative Secretary, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, said this at a stakeholders’ meeting in on Thursday Lafia.

He said that only 1,970 PVCs were collected in April, 2017, while the remaining were at INEC local government offices across the state.

“We are surprised that registered voters in the state are not coming out to collect their PVCs in spite of the public enlightenment campaigns by the commission.

“In fact, we have just concluded 13 weeks of public enlightenment campaign on radio using the various indigenous languages in the state for people to respond. However, to our dismay, the PVCs are still piled up in our stores,” Shola-Otolorin said.

He added that since the commencement of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) on April, 27, 2017, some registered voters had applied for replacement and transfer of the PVCs.

“We have so far received 18,722 applications for replacement from registered voters in the state, whose PVCs have been lost or defaced.

“Also, 4,554 registered voters applied to INEC in the state for the transfer of their PVCs from one location to another.”

He, therefore, charged stakeholders, political parties, civil society organisations, National Orientation Agency and the media to assist by creating more awareness on the need for voters to collect their PVCs in order to discharge their civic responsibility.