The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it has recorded a nationwide total of 84.3 million registered voters. The breakdown, according to the commission, include 14.6 million registered between April 2017 and August this year, and 69.7 million registered before the 2015 general elections. INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who addressed Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in Abuja yesterday, however, explained that the figure might drop slightly after the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) on the newly registered voters.
He, however, said the current figure represents about 21 per cent increase on the existing register. “On this note, let me also appeal to Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the ongoing nationwide display of the particulars of new voters for claims and objections as required by law. “By doing so, citizens will be helping the commission to further clean up the register and purge it of all ineligible registrants as required by Section 12 of the Electoral Act,” Yakubu stated. The INEC Chairman disclosed that the commission is currently processing 769,917 requests for intra and inter-state transfers as well as 1.2 million requests for replacement of lost, damaged or cards with misspelt names or incorrect personal details of voters.
“This means that the commission has to print a total of 16,500,192 Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) and make them available for collection by citizens ahead of the 2019 general elections. “Already, the commission has printed the PVCs for those registered in 2017 and delivered them to states for collection,” he disclosed. Yakubu said the PVCs for 2.7 million voters registered in the first quarter of 2018 have been printed and will be delivered to the states next week.
He reassured Nigerians that every registered voter would have his/her PVC available for collection before the general elections. Yakubu said that the collection of PVCs would continue until a week to the 2019 general elections. “We shall ensure that the process of collection is simplified with minimum inconvenience to citizens. We will also ensure that information about the collection of PVCs is widely disseminated. “Already, we are partnering with telecommunication companies to send bulk text (sms) messages to citizens for the collection of their PVCs,” he added.
