— By Ama Eyengho —
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that not less than 2.7 million double registrations were weeded out of the last Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise conducted by the commission, adding that new Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) will be made available by November 2022.
INEC Chairman Prof Mahmoud Yakubu made this statement yesterday at a National Endowment for Democracy (NED) event in Washington DC, United States of America.
According to Prof Yakubu, about 50% of the new PVCs are ready but yet to be distributed to collection centres, even as he raised concerns about the rising levels of insecurity across the country, saying the Commission has its “fingers crossed.”
“It is a perennial issue because, at the end of the day, it is not new but the dimension of the insecurity is new in the sense that in the past, it was localised or confined to a particular part of the country – the North-East but now, it is more widespread,” he stated.
“We are keeping our eyes particularly, on the North-West and the South-Eastern part of the country. Elections are conducted by human beings. We worry about the security of our officials, materials, and even the voters themselves. Without them, elections cannot be conducted,” he added.
The INEC leader, however, expressed optimism that they “have spoken to the security agencies and they have assured us that the situation will improve before the elections. So, fingers crossed.”
