By Kachi Ekile
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has stated that Permanent Voter Cards will not be released to third parties ahead of the gubernatorial election in Edo State.
The disclosure was made by INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun in a statement on Tuesday.
Olumekun announced that new applicants will be given their PVCs across Edo State local government areas on Wednesday, August 28.
According to him, the distribution of PVCs at the ward level had been concluded, with 125,928 collected within five days.
“As earlier announced by the commission, Permanent Voter Cards from the recent Continuous Voter Registration in Edo State would be available for collection at two levels. First, across all the 192 wards from Thursday, 22, to Monday, 26, August 2024. Secondly, in our 18 LGA offices.
“The commission is pleased to announce the conclusion of the collection at ward level. Learning from the lessons of the previous collection of PVCs, the commission has carefully packaged all the PVCs by Poling Units, Wards and LGAs. We also produced the collection register, providing details of the voters whose cards were ready for collection, and uploaded them to our website.
“In addition, we contacted them using the addresses provided at the time of registration. As a result, out of the 184,438 new PVCs available, 125,928 cards were collected by voters, representing 68.3 per cent of the total. This is the highest percentage of PVCs collected in five days since the commission introduced the CVR ahead of off-cycle governorship elections in 2015.
“A detailed breakdown of the collection by LGAs has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for public information,” he said.
“Meanwhile, the collection will resume in our 18 LGA offices in Edo State from tomorrow, Wednesday, 28th August 2024 and end on Sunday 8th September 2024.
“We appeal to the remaining voters to pick up their PVCs in person from our LGA offices. The commission reiterates its policy that no cards will be collected by proxy. Detailed information on the locations of our LGA offices is already available on our website,” Olumekun added.
