8th December, 2022
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Lagos says 5,676,858 PVCs have been collected out of 6,630,661 received in the state from 2011 to 2021.
Mr Olusegun Agbaje, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Lagos state disclosed this at a Stakeholders’ meeting on the collection of Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) with the leadership of political parties, civil society organisations, and religious leaders on Thursday in Ikeja.
Agbaje, who commended all stakeholders for collaboration in the quest to build a sustainable democratic culture in Nigeria, said the commission was doing everything possible to deliver acceptable and credible elections everyone would be proud of in 2023.
“It is pertinent to note that as of Dec.2, 953,803 PVCs were yet to be collected by their owners.
“These uncollected cards and the expected PVCs for fresh registrants, transfer or review from January to July will be available for collection in all INEC offices across the state from Monday, Dec. 12.
“It is instructive to note that collection of PVC by proxy will not be allowed and the collection of PVC is free.
“Owners of transferred or defaced PVCs should bring along with them, the old PVCs for exchange with new ones,” the INEC boss said.
According to him, for the avoidance of doubt, anyone without PVC cannot vote in the 2023 general elections in line with the Electoral Act 2022.
He said that INEC had fixed the collection of PVCs from Dec. 12 to Jan. 22, 2023 at its Local Government Area offices and from Jan. 6, 2023 to Jan. 15, 2023 at the ward levels.
The commissioner said the deadline of Jan. 22 for the collection of PVCs became imperative to enable INEC to compute the polling unit by polling unit records of PVCs collected.