15m PVCs WAITING COLLECTION...... INEC

ABUJA —With barely 10 days to the end of the extension granted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registered voters to pick their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), as much as 15 million PVCs are still lying at the various collection centres across the country.


The latest breakdown from INEC as at February 23 indicates that 53,466, 635 out of a total of 68,833,476 registered voters have collected their PVCs, representing 77.68 per cent.
According to the information, Gombe, Zamfara, Jigawa, Katsina, Kaduna and Akwa Ibom States have the highest number of collected PVCs with 95.05 per cent, 93.42 per cent, 93.20 per cent, 92.68 per cent, 91.98 per cent and 91.28 per cent respectively.

However, the rate of collection is still low in some states like Ogun with 43.51 per cent, FCT has 61.42 per cent while Lagos has 63.30 per cent rate of collection. Others are Edo, 64.38per cent, Oyo, 65.78 per cent, Bayelsa, 66.21per cent, Ebonyi, 66.50 per cent and Borno, 68.28 per cent.

Most other states have recorded appreciable level of collection with over 70 per cent rate of collection of the PVCs which the electoral umpire insists would be used for the conduct of the March 28 and April 11 national and state elections.

Speaking on the drop in the rate of collection, Chief Press Secretary to INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, said the drop may not be unconnected with the attitude of most Nigerians to do things at the dying minute.

According to him, before the extension of the date, the rate of collection in the FCT was between 3,000 and 4,000 daily but as soon as the extension was announced, it dropped to about 400 each day.

He, however, appealed to those who are yet to collect their cards to do so to avoid the usual rush towards the grace period.