The Resident Election Commissioner of Lagos State, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje, has explained the reason behind the large number of Permanent Voter Cards not collected in the state.
Agbaje revealed that this was because many potential voters might have emigrated from the state for different reasons, while others might have died.
In a brief interview with saturday punch, Agbaje also noted that previous registrants would collect at least 400,000 of the 900,000 old PVCs.
The REC said: “We have the old ones that were around 900,000 before, the number is even down now, and that’s why uncollected PVCs seem to be on the high side.
“I had previously told some journalists that those PVCs cannot be collected because many of the owners of the PVCs have moved, we have many institutions in Lagos, some students are no longer in the state, we also have government workers and other workers. . that have been transferred. Some even left Nigeria, some may have died. Lots of people can’t go back to pick up theirs. However, we still have around 200,000 to 400,000 PVCs that can still be collected during this period.”
Speaking about the current PVC collection process, he said it would improve as the process had moved from Local Governments to the 45 Residential Areas (Boroughs) in the state.
“I think the collection of PVCs has started to improve now that we have moved collection from local government to residential areas. They have been able to serve a lot of people. Areas like Agege, we have 11 AR there, Ifelodun, Alimosho, we have 11 AR there too. We have 45 ARs throughout the country so that people who couldn’t cash in the LG can also go.
“Many of my Election Officials have said that they are going to have more than they have been having in the GLs. They are gone today; They have more than 2,000. We will see the result on the 15th of this month”.
Meanwhile, the Independent National Election Commission in Lagos state on Friday denounced poor PVC collection as 1,630,744 cards were still to be collected in the state.
He Nigerian News Agency reported that the Commission’s Public Affairs Officer in the state, Ms. Adenike Oriowo, revealed that only 224,490 out of 940,200 newly printed PVCs had been collected as of Wednesday, covering commission offices in all 20 government areas. location in the state.
Oriowo noted that the commission received a total of 6,570,291 PVCs of which 5,655,257 had been collected on Wednesday, while 915,034 were still to be collected by owners.
According to her, the total PVC (old and new) received by the state from the INEC headquarters in Abuja was 7,510,941, of which 5,879,747 had been collected, while as of Wednesday 1,630 were still to be collected. 744.
She said PVC applicants had the opportunity to visit their registration areas/districts from January 6-15 to collect their cards in person and not by proxy at district levels and that the exercise would return to local government levels. on January 15, 2022.
“Today we have transferred the PVCs to the RA (Registration Areas). We want people to take advantage of the opportunity and create time to collect their cards,” he said.
Likewise, the INEC in Ríos, urged this Thursday those who cannot withdraw their PVC at the offices of the LGA commission to do so in the Registration Areas/Rooms on the stipulated dates.
The Head of the Department of Voter Education and Publicity, INEC, Mr. Mark Usulor, in a statement in Port Harcourt, called on all stakeholders to provide a peaceful and conducive environment for commission officials to conduct successfully carried out the exercise in the 319 Registration/Guardianship Areas in the state within the stipulated period.
INEC, in a similar report, said it had created more centers to facilitate the ongoing collection of PVC in the Federal Capital Territory.
According to YAYA report, the commission published a circular in Abuja on Friday listing the locations to include Garki Government Secondary School, Area 10.
