87.2m PVCs collected as Nigerians set to elect new president tomorrow
After weeks of preparation, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has cleared 87,209,007 voters out of the 93.5 million it registered to vote in tomorrow’s Presidential and National Assembly election and the March 11 governorship and state Assembly polls.
The 87.2 million voters were the number of people who collected their Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs, as of February 5 when the deadline to collect the cards ended.
The electoral umpire insisted yesterday that no one would be allowed to vote without PVC. Indeed, there were hope and anxiety among Nigerians as candidates and political parties rounded off campaigns across the country, yesterday.
While some votrers expressed hopes that the elections would offer the coutry an opportunity to launch on thr ight path of development, others feared that the process could turn violent, especially considering the violence and verbal exchanges among the presidential candidates and some key stakeholders that had trailed the campaigns which ended yesterday.
According to the data released, yesterday, the number of uncollected PVCs stood at 6,259,229. Nigeria has a registered voting population of 93,469,008.
The Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council PCC had on Wednesday demanded a breakdown of Nigerians who have collected their PVCs, saying the data was necessary for its election planning.
At a news conference Wednesday in Abuja, INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed that the commission would upload the PVC data collection disaggregation on polling unit basis to its website by Friday.
Aside journalists from domestic and foreign media, some of those present at the briefing were former President of Malawi, Joyce Banda; leaders of the International Republican Institute, IRI, and National Democratic Institute, NDI;
Chairmen of the electoral commissions of the Republic of Benin, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Tanzania and Niger Republic as well as members of the Diplomatic Corps.
State by state figures
A state by state breakdown of PVCs collected showed that Lagos has the highest figure of 6,214,970, followed by Kano with 5,594,193; Kaduna, 4,164,473; Katsina, 3,459,945; and, Rivers, 3,285,785.
Ekiti which has the lowest number of registered voters also has the lowest number of PVCs collected – 958, 052.
A summation of PVCs collected on the basis of geopolitical zones showed that the North-West has 21,445,000; South-West, 15,536,213; North-Central, 14,603,621; South-South, 13,284,920; North-East, 11,937,769; and, South-East, 10,401,484.
In his address, Yakubu said the Commission has meticulously prepared and implemented its Election Project Plan, learning from recent elections.
“This election is a huge logistical deployment. We have painstakingly procured, organized and delivered all the materials to the States for deployment. We commenced the delivery of non-sensitive materials over two months ago and they have been batched down to Registration Area/Ward and Pulling Unit levels.
“Sensitive materials have been delivered to the States and are presently being delivered to our Local Government Area offices. As such, these materials are only between one and two levels away from the Polling Units. We have achieved this by learning from our recent difficult experience with logistics. We have completed arrangements with the transport unions for the final leg of the movement of personnel and materials to the Polling Units. They have assured us of their readiness to provide all the vehicular needs of the Commission for the election”, he said.
Yakubu added that the commission had also completed all the testing of its technologies to be deployed for the election, particularly the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS and the INEC Results Viewing Portal IReV.
“On 4th February 2023, we tested the BVAS in a mock accreditation exercise and uploaded the results to IReV. We are satisfied with the performance of the BVAS, which has been confirmed by several groups that observed the exercise. Lessons learnt from the exercise have helped us in the training of 10,600 Registration Area Technical Support Staff RATECHS. They will provide the necessary support to ensure that the deployment of the BVAS is without hitches.
No PVC, no voting
“Let me reiterate that the procedure for voting as provided in the Electoral Act 2022 clearly makes the use of the BVAS mandatory. So, also, the use of the Permanent Voters’ Cards PVCs. The ‘No PVC, No Voting’ rule subsists.
“In the last few months, we made 13,676,907 PVCs available for collection for new voters and applicants for transfer and replacement of lost/damaged cards. While we are pleased that the rate of collection is higher than in previous years, there are still, unfortunately, many cards that were not collected. Vanguard
