1.8million PVC yet to be collected

About 1.8 million permanent voter cards (PVCs) are yet to be collected by eligible registered voters in Lagos State. The resident Independent Electoral Commissioner (INEC), Mr Akin Orebiyi disclosed this yesterday when he visited the Lagos State governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, to demonstrate usage of the INEC card readers. According to him, about 5,822,207 eligible voters were registered in Lagos out of a total of 68,833,476 registered voters in Nigeria. Orebiyi explained that out of the 5.5 million PVCs produced for Lagos State, only 3, 693, 000 cards have been collected, leaving a deficit of about 1.8 million cards. He said a total of 430,000 PVCs were still being awaited from INEC headquarters in Abuja, adding that INEC staff members have been deployed to the 8,462 polling units across the state.“ As at yesterday (Thursday), the total number of cards collected in Lagos to date is 3, 693, 000 out of 5.5 million cards that we’ve collected so far from Abuja. At the moment, we are still expecting another 430,000 cards which should arrive by next week. But meanwhile, we still have in our custody 1.8 million cards yet to been collected.
“This morning, we have again deployed our staff to all the 8,462 polling units across the state to make the collection more accessible rather than stay at the local government offices where we have been for the past three weeks,” he said. Orebiyi dispelled the claims that some non-indigenes of Lagos State were denied their PVCs. He said, “Collection of cards was done
practically by every Nigerian who
registered in Lagos; we didn’t register
people based on ethnicity and we are not
also distributing card on the basis of
ethnic groups.
“If indeed there have been issues of delay in collection of cards in certain parts of the State where perhaps non-indigenes populate, it is not a deliberate act, the cards are coming and they belong to the remaining 430,000 cards yet to be
received from Abuja. “But principally, our register has shown that Nigerians from all walks of life and different ethnic groups have been collecting their cards.
“We have quite a number of INEC staff who are non-indigenes. Out of the 20 electoral officers, five of them, that’s a quarter, are non-indigenes. The head of voter education is from the Southeast, my deputy is from South-South, I am from Southwest but married to a south-easterner. So, we should discourage such insinuation.”
The Lagos REC pointed out that the voter register would also be used for the accreditation process which would last five hours on election days before the actual voting process and that adequate back-up plans have been put in place to forestall loss of data or gadgets.
Responding, Lagos State governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola charged INEC to sensitise the various political parties in the country on the workings of the card readers and what the people should expect on election days. The governor said this will help the parties to educate their members and supporters on the modalities for the election. Fashola whose PVC was also used to test-run the card reader promised to extend the knowledge he got from the process to other stakeholders in the state.