The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has reiterated its readiness, preparedness to conduct the rescheduled elections on Saturday, as 72,775,502 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), representing 86. 63 per cent of the 84,004,084 registered voters nationwide as at Feb. 11 were collected at the deadline for the collection of the cards.
The Chairman of the Commission Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed to newsmen on Thursday at day 3 briefing of stakeholders in Abuja that 11,228,582 or 13.14 per cent of the printed cards were yet to be collected.
“At yesterday briefing, we promised to make public detail information of collection of PVCs nationwide. The commission as a matter of policy has said that no citizen can vote without PVC issued by the commission and read by the Card Reader”.
“Having announced the total number of registered voters and the distribution by age, gender and occupation. The citizen deserves the right to know how many PVCs had been collected across the country.”
“The last day for the collection of PVCs was Monday, Feb. 11, 2019, out of the 84,004,084 registered voters, the total number of registered voters stands at 72,775,502, which represent 86 .83 per cent of the PVCs.’’
Yakubu however said that a total of 11,228,582 printed PVCs or 13. 7 per cent were uncollected.
At the State levels however Lagos and Kano still record the highest number of registered voters at 6,570,291 and 5,457,747 respectively; while uncollected PVCs are placed at 1,038,902 and 761,000 respectively.
“Out of this figure 7,817,905 PVCs were carried over from the 2014 to 2016 registration exercise, while 3,410,677 are from the last CVR held between April 2017 and August 2018″.
“All uncollected cards have been deposited with the CBN for custody.’’
The chairman also noted that 19 states had fully deployed election materials including the non-sensitive materials to the local government areas, except for Bayelsa where materials would be deployed directly from the state INEC office, Friday.
“Tomorrow activities at the ward level will commence with the activation of the RACs at 9 a.m, while the movement of personnel and materials will commence at the midday. This is the last scheduled course to the last deployment to 119, 973 polling units leading to the opening of polls at 8 a.m in the morning of Saturday,” he said.
On the welfare of the members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) participating in the election, Yakubu said that the commission was not happy about images on social medial where NYSC members were seen sleeping on the floor.
He said that the commission would provide water, electricity and other facilities needed as well as security for the NYSC members.
