Politics

2023 Election: Residents Allege Extortion at PVC Collection Centre

By Web News 701

By Olaitan Oye-Adeitan

Collection of Permanent Voter Cards in the past used to be a herculean task as the electorate had to queue and make repeated visits to INEC local governments before they can access it.

It was in a bid to address the problem that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had to decentralize the mode of collecting the PVC by making it available at the wards for easy collection by the electorate.

Despite this effort, information from INEC revealed that about 900,000 voter cards were still unclaimed and the question is why?

Findings from some electorate showed collecting the PVC was a bit difficult, though surmounted.

Some even claimed they were asked to pay as narrated when sharing their experiences.

Voices of some residents of Ibadan on their experiences at PVC collection centres.

But during an interview, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Oyo State, Dr Adeniran Tella said collection of PVC was at no cost to the electorate and remained as such.

In another dimension, while some people defied all odds to secure their voter cards, some are non-challant as captured in this video.

The collection of PVC which was extended following an appeal by the masses expires on Monday, 30th January 2023.

Will all the unclaimed cards have been collected by their rightful owners by this time?

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Politics

Ogun Residents Appraise INEC on Decentralization of PVC Collection

By Web News 547

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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