The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it has so far registered over 81.5 million eligible Nigerian voters as at August 15 this year. This include the 68.8 million voters registered before the 2015 general elections and additional 12.7 million new registrants since the commission embarked on continuous voter registration (CVR) in April 2016.
However, there is indication that the figure might increase with the extension of the CVR exercise by two weeks. INEC had earlier said the exercise would be suspended by August 17 until after the 2019 to enable it produce the permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) before the general elections
This exercise will now end on August 30. A data obtained from the commission’s headquarters revealed that the rate of PVCs collection is still low with an outstanding 7.5 million unclaimed. Lagos State still leads in the number of uncollected PVCs with over 1.5 million. According to the data, only 1.7 million people collected their PVCs this year, while only 230,175 collected theirs last year.
INEC had claimed that some pre-2015 election registrants, who were yet to claim the PVCs, might have either died or transferred from where they had registered. Among the newly registered, 6.9 million were male while female registrants constitute 5.8 million
The commission further disclosed that 640,706 PVCs transfer request was received while 998,993 persons want their damaged/ lost PVCs replaced.