The Administrative Secretary, Independent National Electoral Commission in Ogun State, Mr. Dickson Atiba, has said the commission is worried over 560,285,000 Permanent Voter Cards that have not yet been collected by the owners in the state.
He said this during the courtesy visit of the new state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Valentine Ntomchukwu, to the headquarters of the commission at the Magbon area of Abeokuta on Tuesday.
He said the turnout of people at different polling units to collect their PVC had not been encouraging.
Atiba said, “The total number of registered voters in Ogun State is 1,795,794 and total number of PVCs we have received so far from Abuja is 1,368,875. And out of this, 808,590,000 have been distributed as of today (Tuesday), which represents 59.1 per cent”.
The INEC administrative secretary, who said the distribution of the PVC was still ongoing in different polling units across the state, explained that to ensure that every registered voter collected the PVC, the list of names of those who had yet to collect, was being compiled and would be handed over to various stakeholders in the state.
Atiba, however, said he foresaw a situation whereby the INEC might extend the March 8 deadline for the collection of PVCs, if by that date substantial number of eligible voters had not yet collected their PVCs.
He said, “The distribution of the cards is still ongoing in different polling units across the state. We have tried to make sure the cards are collected. We have asked our officials to write out the names on the PVC, and we will present the list to stakeholders.
“By next week, we believe the number of those who had collected their PVC will improve, since we are distributing at the polling unit level”.
In his remarks, CP Ntomchukwu commended the INEC for the progress made so far towards ensuring free and fair elections on March 28 and April 11.