Ahead of the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is still gathering data on the number of collected and uncollected Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs), a week after the September 30 deadline for the exercise; BDSUNDAY has learnt.
Preparatory to the elections, INEC had slated September 2 to September 30 as the period within which it would distribute the 47, 493 and 170, 900 uncollected PVCs in Bayelsa and Kogi, respectively. The number of PVCs collected, implies the number of voters to participate in an election.
As at September 20, only 10, 206 PVCs were collected in Bayelsa, remaining 37, 287 while 7,044 have been collected in Kogi leaving out 163,856 PVCs.
Responding to inquiries by BDSUNDAY, Festus Okoye, INEC National commissioner and chairman of Voter Education and Publicity Committee said, the Commission was still gathering data on the collected and uncollected PVCs from its respective Local Government Offices of the two states.
He said when completed, the data or number collected and uncollected PVCs would be made known to political parties and stakeholders in the electoral process, adding that the Commission is going to meet to take final decision on the PVCs distribution.
Okoye said: “The Commission is meeting and will take a final decision on the issue of PVCs distribution. The Commission may also take a decision on the release of the final data on collected and uncollected PVCs.
“We adopted creative methods and strategies in mobilising registered voters that had not collected their PVCs. 30days is sufficient for people desirous of collecting their PVCs. The Commission will be transparent and inclusive in its decisions.
“We are presently gathering the data of collected and uncollected PVCs from the various Local Government offices of the Commission. This data will be made available to the political parties and stakeholders”.
James Kwen, Abuja
