Election: 205,127 PVCs uncollected in Ekiti – INEC

Barely three months to the 2023 general elections in the country, 205,127 eligible voters in Ekiti are yet to collect their permanent voter cards (PVC), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Ayobami Salami, made this known on Tuesday in Ado-Ekiti at a stakeholders’ meeting and urged owners of the PVCs to go to the INEC offices in their LGA to pick their cards.

The REC said INEC had approved the commencement of the distribution of the Permanent Voters Card nationwide from Dec. 12 to Jan. 22, 2023, noting that the exercise would take place in all the 16 Local Government Areas offices of the commission in the state.

He said the exercise would devolve to registration areas (wards) from Jan. 6, 2023 till Jan. 15. 2023.

“There will be issuance register which will be pasted in each LGA for registrants to check their names before proceeding to the collection point, this will ease the collection procedure, fast track the process and reduce the congestion always experienced at the collection point.

“I solicit your advocacy as stakeholders in the state to encourage collection of the remaining 205,127 PVCs yet to be collected in the state.

“Only 783,796 voter cards have so far been collected out of the 988,923 registered voters in Ekiti, meaning 205, 127 PVCs are yet to be collected,’’ Salami said.

The REC also said that the commission was in the process of relocating some Registration Area Centers (RACs) and Super Registration Area Centers S/RACs as well as collations centers that were hitherto not appropriately located in some LGAs.

Salami further said that the commission in the state had embarked on decongesting densely populated polling centres and moving some of the electorate to sparsely populated ones in the same location or cluster.

He said the decongestion would go a long way to reduce unnecessary queues and waste of time at the polling units by voters on election days.

The REC said that INEC in the state had intensified public enlightenment and voter education programmes through the mass media, outreaches to markets and other public places ahead of the elections.

“Meetings and consultations with Civil Society Organization s (CSOs) are also on going, on this, on a regular basis”, he said.

Responding, the youth representative, Mr Segun Bankole, and Chairman National Youth Council of Nigeria Ekiti State and IPAC representative, Mr. Daramola Owolabi, advised INEC to ensure people relocated to new polling centres were promptly informed.

Also a representative of People Living with Disabilities PWDs, Mr Kayode Owolabi solicited for participation of PWDs, as adhoc staff, in the forthcoming general elections.

The Chairman, Nigeria Union of Journalist, Ekiti State Council, Mr Rotimi Ojomoyela, appealed to INEC to intensify voter education and sensitisation, so as to avoid repeat cases of invalid votes as recorded in the June 18 Governorship election in the state.