Festus Okoye, National Commissioner, Information and Voter Education, INEC sheds more light on the issue surrounding the collection of PVC, and addresses the issue of vote-buying.
On Friday, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced that based on the reports it received from some states about — “unprecedented surge in the number of citizens that wish to register as voters and the challenges they face across the country,”
It held a meeting and decided to deploy additional 209 machines to the five South-Eastern states, Lagos and Kano where the pressure is most acute.
The INEC’s press statement added that “in some states, the sudden turnout of prospective registrants is overwhelming.”
The electoral body said that it would monitor the situation over the next few days and thereafter hold another meeting to review the progress of the registration exercise.
The press statement signed by Mr Festus Okoye, gave an assurance to Nigerians thus:
“Every step will be taken and all options will be explored to ensure that eligible Nigerians are given the opportunity to register as voters.
“The Commission appeals for the patience and understanding of all citizens. Every Nigerian who is 18 years of age and above has the constitutional right to register and vote in any part of the country he/she resides in without let or hindrance.”
At some voter registration centres in recent weeks, Videos f have shown people surging for their PVC.
Talking about the just concluded Ekiti State Election, Mr Festus said that they had a total of 989,224 registered voters and the election took place in 2445 polling unit and in almost all the polling units everything went on well and it was very peaceful.
He added, “If there was a challenge in one polling unit or 2 polling unit we cannot use that particular polling unit to profile 2445 polling unit.
“I have not seen the said video but all the observers and everybody that joined the polls are very peaceful transparent and credible.
Talking about the PVC registration date extended he said,
“The issue of extension is not on the table at the moment. We want to see how far we can go till the 30th day of June 2022 for the purposes of this registration.
“The law obligates us to stop everything relating to registration, review of the voters register, updating of the voters register etc 90 days to the election.
“Moreover, we have to print the entire register and display in the 8,809 registration areas for claims and objections. Thereafter we will run our apix to remove double and multiple registers.
“We will also have to print the PVC’s of every person who have registered, everybody who have done transfer, everybody who’s PVC has been damaged on the face and then begin the process of getting these PVC’s across to the various local government and registration areas for people to collect.
“This is a huge responsibility and we do not want to be caught up carrying out voter registration up to the last moment and we will not even have time to get people to collect their cards.
“Two or three days to the end of the period, the commission will meet, review the process and then see if there’s a compelling, cogent and verifiable reason for extension.
“If we find a cogent and verifiable reason for extension, the commission may extend it for a very short period”. He added
