Nigerians have been urged to take advantage of the ongoing decentralization of the process for the collection of the Permanent Voter Cards by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to empower themselves ahead of this year’s general elections.
A cross-section of residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State Capital, who gave the advice while speaking with Radio Nigeria, applauded the decentralization process.
The respondents maintained that the initiative would address the challenges experienced in the collection of the PVCs at the initial stage, which had contributed to a large number of uncollected cards.
Some of the registrants, including Mr Olugbenga Olukunle, Kamorudeen Erinoso and Abiodun Adekunte said they were encouraged to collect the PVC because the collection point was brought to their local community.
The duo of Mr Olayinka Ayodele and Mrs Taiwo Shokunbi also expressed optimism that INEC’s decision to bring the collection point of PVCs closer to the people would enable more Nigerians to get the cards.
“We are so glad and excited that the collection process has been made easier. It does not take time at all to collect our PVC at the ward level. The INEC officials really tried”.
The situation was however different for a couple of registrants at Egbeda ward 8 in Obafemi-Owode local government area when Radio Nigeria visited the collection centre as they expressed disappointment over their inability to collect the PVC.
Radio Nigeria’s enquiries however revealed that the registrants could not get their PVCs because they fell into the category of people who opted for fresh registration, instead of effecting the transfer of polling units, which amounted to double registration and INEC had declared that such registrations null and void.
Speaking on the level of PVC collection, the Head, of INEC’s Voter Education and Publicity Department in Ogun State, Mrs Celina Beckley described people’s response to the exercise as very impressive and renewed the Commission’s readiness to sustain the system.
According to her, “The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, opened another phase of distribution of Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, to duly register eligible voters in December 2022, at the local government areas nationwide and further decentralized it to the ward level on the 6th of January, 2023”.
Mrs Beckley restated that, the collection exercise would close across the Country, on the 29th of this month and advised registrants yet to collect their PVCs to take the advantage of the extension of the collection period, noting that, the cards remained their major tool to determine the Country’s leaders at various levels.
Adebola Ajayi.
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