August 01, (THEWILL) – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) will be ready for collection in October and November 2022.
INEC National Commissioner on Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, made this announcement on Monday in an Arise TV interview monitored by THEWILL.
Okoye said persons who registered between January 15 and June 30, 2022, will get their PVC in October, while those who registered in July would obtain theirs in November.
Maintaining that the commission would not extend the voter registration exercise any further, the INEC spokesman said it could not go on ‘ad infinitum’ due to constitutional and legal restraints as it would damage the timetable and schedule for the 2023 general elections.
He said, “For those who registered between January 15 and June 30, 2022, the chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu has assured that their PVCs will be ready for collection in October, for those who registered between July 1 to July 31, 2022, their PVCs will be ready for collection in November.
“When the PVCs are ready, for those who have email accounts, we are going to send messages telling them that their PVCs are ready. We are going to send bulk SMS to those who supplied their telephone numbers and make announcements on radio and television.
“We are also going to liaise with community leaders, traditional rulers, religious leaders, women-based organisations and civil society groups for them to assist in mobilizing and sensitizing people and also help in making sure that people come to collect their PVCs. We have designed a clear protocol on will to get people to collect these PVCs without them going through a lot, we want the PVC collection to be seamless and we have designed protocols, so maybe civil society organizations including the bar association may volunteer to assist the commission when it is time for PVC collection and we are also going contact NYSC for them to also assist in the PVC collection. So, we are confident that all those who registered will collect their PVCs on or before December by the protocols we have designed.”
On the extension of voter registration, Okoye said, “It will be to the joy of INEC and to the elevation of our electoral process if every individual who is legally qualified to be registered, registers and we projected that we should give enough time for all the eligible registrants to register and that was why we spaced out the voter registration process, the CVR, over a period of 13 months to enable all registrants to register. Unfortunately, the surge started building up when it was just two weeks to the close of the registration exercise and based on the surge and the deluge we extended the registration exercise by another one month, not only that, we also deployed additional staff to all the registration areas, we deployed additional machines to all the registration areas, we increased the period for registration from 9am to 5pm, we also included Saturdays and Sundays.
“Unfortunately, we have to bring this process to an end, because we cannot go on ad infinitum, our electoral process is constitutionally and legally circumscribed, and if we continue with this voters’ registration exercise, ad infinitum, it will do damage to our timeline and schedule of activities for the 2023 general elections.”
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