52,000 unclaimed PVCs collected in Zamfara – Committee

The Zamfara Voter Education Committee, said on Tuesday that it had succeeded in getting 52,000 registered voters in the state to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).

Alhaji Sanusi Rikiji, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly and Chairman of the committee who made the disclosure in Gusau, said before the massive enlightenment campaign by the committee a total of 63,000 PVCs were unclaimed in the state.

Rikiji said, `Before now we have about 63,000 unclaimed PVCs belonging to our people, but as I speak now, based on the reports we had from INEC only 11,000 unclaimed PVCs remains in the INEC office.

“As we are all aware, the state government established this committee for voter education with the responsibility of mobilising the people of the state to participate actively on PVCs collection and continuous voters registration exercises by the INEC.

“Apart from the main committee, we also established sub committees at local governments and emirates levels headed by traditional rulers.

“We collaborated with the INEC officials and embarked on enlightenment and sensitisation exercise as regards to Continuous Voter Registration and Distribution of PVCs.

“Based on the efforts made by the state government in collaboration with the INEC office in this state, we have recorded great achievements.

“Before now we had 63,000 unclaimed PVCs, but as I am speaking to you now, only 11,000 unclaimed PVCs exist, all the 52,000 PVCs have been collected by our people.

“We urge those registered during the continuous voters registration to remain calm as their PVCs are coming to the state any moment from now, what we heard from the INEC is that about 90,000 new PVCs would be brought to the state any time from now.”

Rikiji thanked the Independent National Electoral Commission (iNEC) for establishing additional registration centers across the state during the continuous voters registration.

Also, the head of publicity of the committee, who is also the state Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lawal Liman urged eligible voters that had not registered to do so before the closure of the exercise.

“You know that INEC has fixed August 17, 2018 to close the Continuous Voter Registration exercise, we are calling on our people who have not registered to visit INEC offices nearest to them and register.

“As democratic leaders, we have to ensure that our people collect their PVCs not only for election purposes but for other rights and privileges.

“We want to use this medium to thank the support of traditional rulers, media and other stakeholders for enlightening the general public in this regard”, he said.