By Adedapo Adesanya
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says 87 million Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), which account for around 93 per cent, have so far been collected ahead of the 2023 general elections.
This was disclosed by INEC Chairman, Mr Mahmood Yakubu, at a press briefing for the 2023 elections in Abuja on Thursday.
A breakdown of the figure showed that Lagos leads in the number of collected PVCs with 6,214,970. This is closely followed by Kano with 5,594,193, and Kaduna with 4,164, 473.
He noted that the current voter register has over 94 million voters but stated that the commission would continue to clean it up with technology going forward.
According to him, of the number, 93.3 per cent have collected their PVCs, while 6,259,229 cards — which is 6.7 per cent of PVCs — are still uncollected.
The INEC chairman further revealed that a total of 1,642,385 polling units and collation centre agents of political parties would participate in the elections.
He also disclosed that the organisation has fully recovered from the recent attacks on its facilities in some states.
He raised concerns about vote buying but was hopeful that the vices would be dealt with. He stated that voters are not allowed to go to the voting cubicle with their phones.
Noting that all materials have been distributed to states, he said the sensitive materials are currently being delivered to local government areas. He said that nonsensitive materials were deployed two months ago.
The INEC chairman reiterated that 240 polling units do not have voters, also saying that staff to be deployed for the elections have been trained.
He assured that the commission will closely monitor the conduct of staff and will sanction anyone who compromises the process.
Mr Yakubu also expressed that the Commission is satisfied with the performance of the BVAS after the conduct of a mock accreditation exercise a few weeks earlier. He said that backup technicians for the BVAS have also been deployed for the election.
According to the INEC boss, the daily briefing is to update stakeholders as events unfold ahead of and during the election.
Modupe Gbadeyanka