The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it is yet to print the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) of Nigerians who participated in the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise from 15th January to 31st July, this year.
INEC National Commissioner, Barrister Festus Okoye said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday: “If you are a registered voter, in other words if you belong to the class of 84 million Nigerians that have already registered, you can track your data in our database.
“Secondly, if you were one of those that registered with the commission during the CVR exercise between 28th day of June 2021 and 14th day of January 2022, you can track where your PVC is and you will still be in a position to collect it.
“But if you register between the 15th day of January 2022 and the 31st day of July 2022, the implication is that you are not yet a registered voter in the true sense of the word because we have just finished the cleaning up of the voters’ register which is still ongoing.
“So, it is not possible for you to know where your permanent voters card is because we are yet to print your permanent voter cards and we are yet to make these permanent voter cards available for the registrants”.
He said that there is pressure on INEC from the electorate to conduct free and fair elections in 2023 and that it would be difficult for any politician to compromise the sanctity of electoral process in next year’s poll.
Okoye also said that INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu could only be removed constitutionally if he commits any infraction against his office but dismissed rumours of the removal of the INEC boss.
Earlier on Wednesday, Yakubu at Third Quarterly Meeting with political parties for the year 2022 in Abuja said 40 percent of newly registered voters are students whilst 76.5 percent of the newly registered voters are young people.
According to Yakubu, 9,518,188 new voters have been added to the existing register of 84,004,084 voters and preliminary register of voters in Nigeria now stands at 93,522,272.
In July, INEC suspended the CVR after a one-month extension following the Federal High Court’s dismissal of a suit filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) which sought an extension of the exercise beyond 30th June 2022.
