Road to 2023: Osun receives 5,306 BVAS, says REC

From Lateef Dada, Osogbo

The Osun State Resident Electoral Commissioner for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Dr Mutiu Agboke, on Saturday, said the state has received 5,306 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the 2023 general elections.

He stated this at a campaign organized by the commission in collaboration with a Non-Governmental Organization, Power Of PVC Ride.

Agboke assured that the commission is ready for the coming elections, saying that awareness is ongoing as part of activities to show readiness.

“We have received 5,306 BVAS. We are ready. We are charging, configuring, training our staff, and partnering with stakeholders day in and day out, and we have always been engaging our stakeholders.

“Whether we like it or not, in Nigeria today, non-collection of PVC is a big problem for INEC and unfortunately we have discovered that some individuals have gone ahead to purchasing PVC for the electorate.

“There is a need for us to scale up the level of awareness to go and collect. For example, when I resumed in Osun, we get 408,197 PVCs and between 12 December and 17 December, only 1032 electorate has gone to collect their cards.

“As I speak to you now, we have 407,165. If we have over 400,000 PVC and only 1,000 have gone to collect, it means we’ve not done anything. It means people have not come out. So the first thing we have to do is to scale up our level of awareness.

However, the convener of ‘The Power Of PVC Ride,’ Akorede Balogun, advised people to go and collect their PVC, adding “people should come out to register and they must see the need to go and vote.”