With less than eight weeks till the general elections, 6.7 million Nigerians have failed to receive their permanent voter cards.
Data received on Tuesday from the Independent National Electoral Commission’s state offices revealed that 6.7 million PVCs were stored in INEC safes across 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The INEC declared that the PVC collection window will open on December 12, 2022 and close on January 22, 2023.
The INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education,Festus Okoye revealed in a statement that the collection of PVCs will be devolved to the ward level with effect from January 6–15, 2023, and then moved to the local government areas.
The INEC reported that there were approximately 82.3 million registered voters during the 2019 general elections, but only 28.6 million actually cast ballots. This led to the re-election of President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret.), who received 15 million votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, who received 11.2 million.
Less than 2 million people cast ballots in the Lagos governorship election, which was won by Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC. He received 739,445 votes, defeating PDP candidate Jimi Agbaje, who received 206,141.
1,693,963 PVCs were still uncollected as of December 29 according to data from the Lagos state INEC headquarters. This information was revealed in a file with the title “INEC Lagos PVCs Reports.”
It stated, “Old PVCs received from headquarters – 6,570,291; old PVCs collected up till December 29, 2022 – 5,653,330. Total uncollected old PVCs – 916,961; New PVCs received from headquarters – 940,200; New PVCs collected as at December 29, 2022 – 163,198.
“Total uncollected New PVCs –777,022; Overall total PVCs received from headquarters- 7,510,491; Overall PVCs collected as at December 29, 2022 -5,816,528; Overall PVCs uncollected 1,693,963.’’
About 14,000 persons receive their voter cards each day in Lagos State, according to INEC Director of Voter Education Mrs. Adenike Tadeshe. She also noted that the commission will shortly begin distributing PVCs to the wards.
She said, “I will not say we have a huge number of uncollected PVCs. Looking at the figures, as of December 29, 2022 we have given out 5,816,528 PVCs, so we are now left with 1,693,963 and we want to put in record that on a daily basis in Lagos State, we give out about 14,000 PVCs so the number will keep reducing.
‘’Now, by January 15 and 16, we will be taking the cards to all the 245 wards in Lagos State and from there to the local government areas, so this will bring the cards closer to the people for collection.”
Findings show that as of December 24, the FCT had 460,643 PVCs that had not yet been collected.
The Abuja Municipal Area Council had the most uncollected PVCs in the FCT, according to a document received from INEC.
661,783 voter registration cards in Edo state were still uncollected as of December 29.
By December 15, the states of Ekiti and Ondo got 205,127 and 300,000 cards, respectively.