Joseph Bakare
Nigerian voters have collected 86.6 per cent of all the voting cards issued, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu has declared.
Yakubu, told election observers and reporters that 72.8 million cards had been collected out of 84 million registered voters.
Releasing the figures, Thursday, he said, 72, 775, 502 Nigerians now have Permanent Voter Cards, PVC and that only those with PVC can vote in next Saturday’s election.
The commission said while there are 84, 004, 084 registered voters, 11, 228, 582 Nigerians are yet to collect their PVCs.
Speaking on Day Four of the daily press briefing, Yakubu said, “The last date for the collection of PVC’s was 11th February 2019.
“Out of 84, 004, 084 registered voters, the total number of PVC’s collected stands at 72, 775, 585 which represents 86.3 per cent of the total PVCs produced.”
He said all the uncollected cards had been deposited at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
A look at the break down shows that Lagos has the highest number of collected PVCs which stands at 5.5 million while Ekiti State with 666,591 cards has the lowest.
In 2015, about 68, 833, 476 Nigerians were registered to vote in the February 14th general election.
The figure, against this year’s 84, 004, 084 registered voters shows that more Nigerians are taking interest in the electoral process.
It shows than the number of registered voters as at 21st February 2019 increased by 15,170,608.
