• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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INEC claims over 62% PVC distribution in Lagos

Edo: 1.9 million voters to decide PDP, APC, LP fate in 2023 poll

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Lagos State, has said it has distributed over 62 per cent out of about 6,619,640 of the permanent voter cards (PVCs) in the state. Femi Akinbiyi, assistant director (publicity), disclosed while speaking with BusinessDay in his office on Tuesday.

Akinbiyi also said that about 400,000 cards were being awaited from the commission’s headquarters in Abuja. “As we speak, our head of ICT is in Abuja to ensure that all the PVCs that are ready are moved to Lagos immediately. The REC directed that the officer should stay put in Abuja for this purpose, that is to show you how serious the matter is,” he said. The assistant director, who said the INEC was not engaging in fresh registration, added that the collection of PVCs was ongoing in the state.

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“People can go to the INEC office at the local government. It is a daily affair. But from March 8 till the day of the election, people can go to where they registered to collect their cards, Fridays and Saturdays. We are bearing this extra cost. What we are doing is to let people see we are trying our best,” Akinbiyi said. Ruling out further registration of prospective voters, he said such an exercise has since closed.

On the issue of whether INEC is going to request additional money to carry out all the new assignments, such as deploying staff to the polling units to ensure that people collect their PVCs, and other running costs not envisaged, Akinbiyi said, “We have to look inwards because the people don’t want to hear about whether you requested for additional money or not; all they want to see is the job being delivered; how you achieved it is none of their problems. You know the noise is loudest in Lagos and that is why the commission is doing everything within its powers to ensure we deliver. I must tell you that Lagos is the state with the highest collection of the PVC; as of February 14, over 62 per cent of collection has been recorded in Lagos.”

According to him, “There have been lots of allegations and falsehood surrounding the distribution of PVCs in Lagos. Some people claimed that the commission was collaborating with a party to deny non-indigenes the opportunity of collecting the cards so that they would not be able to vote for a particular candidate on the election day. But how true can such an allegation be? How is it possible that at the point of registration we singled out non-indigenes and said we would not register them or give them their PVCs; how for instance, do we determine that a particular voter will vote for candidate A or B, just because he or she is bearing an Igbo name; or just because a voter’s name is Musa, he will vote for a candidate of the Northern origin? Is it possible? The allegations are not backed up with facts.”