Admin l Tuesday, January 17, 2023
LONDON – Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahood Yakubu has said that Lagos State with the highest number of registered voters in Nigeria now leads other states in terms of collection of Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs.
There are over 7 million registered voters in Lagos State out of the 93.4 million registered voters nationwide, INEC chairman said, stressing that about 12 million voters were added to the register in the last few months as a result of the improvement in the process.
The INEC chairman who was addressing Nigerians at the Chatham House, London, said over 600,000 PVCs have been collected in Lagos State in the last one month, ahead of other states.
He said that the commission has dispatched internal memos to Resident Electoral Commissioners across the states, telling them to put their eyes on the PVC collection process following complains of denials and selective treatment in some of the collection centres.
He said the commission kicked off the process in the 774 local governments later graduated to the ward level. He said deadline for the collection of PVCs has been extended to January 29, adding that it is so because the commission will have to publish the number of PVCs collected in each of the polling units nationwide before the February 25 general election.
He said that INEC is committed to a free, fair, credible, transparent and verifiable election, adding that 75.39 percent of registered voters in the country fall between age 18 and 49 years, stressing that the 2023 election is an election for young Nigerians.
