INEC to Release New PVCs in November
New Permanent Voter Cards will be made accessible by November, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced Tuesday.
INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu remarked on this at a National Endowment for Democracy event in Washington, DC.
In the most recent exercise of the commission’s Continuous Voters Registration program, Yakubu said that 2.7 million duplicate registrations had been removed.
About 50% of the new PVCs, in his estimation, are ready but have not yet been sent to the collection centres.
Yakubu further raised concerns about the rising levels of insecurity across the country, stressing, however, that the Commission has its “fingers crossed”.
“It is a perennial issue because, at the end of the day, it is not new, but the dimension of the insecurity is new in the sense that in the past, it was localised or confined to a particular part of the country – the North-East but now, it is more widespread,” he said.
“We are keeping our eyes, particularly, on the North-West and the South-Eastern part of the country. Human beings conduct elections. We worry about the security of our officials, materials, and even the voters themselves. Without them, elections cannot be conducted. ”
The INEC boss, however, said they “have spoken to the security agencies, and they have assured me that the situation will improve before the elections. So, fingers crossed.”
