The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has extended the deadline for the collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), from Friday 8th February to Monday the 11th.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this Friday in Abuja at a meeting with the states Resident Electoral Commissioners RECs.
The meeting of the top INEC officials was to review the level of the commission’s preparedness for the 16th February election.
Yakubu said INEC arrived at the decision to extend the deadline following appeals by Nigerians for a review of the collection process.
“In the last couple of days, we have been inundated by calls from Nigerians to review the current process of collection of Permanent Voters’ Cards. In response, the Commission has taken the following decisions:
“The collection of PVCs scheduled to end today Friday 8th February 2019 is hereby extended nationwide to Monday 11th February 2019. This will include Saturday and Sunday. The collection of PVCs will now take place from 9am to 6pm daily. “All State offices are hereby directed to review the procedure for the collection of PVCs and dedicate all the staff of the Local Government offices to the collection process. Staff is enjoined to be civil in attending to citizens and to escalate issues that they cannot immediately resolve to their superiors.”
According to him, the meeting with the RECs would “undertake a comprehensive review of our preparations. Overall, the Commission is ready for the elections. Nevertheless, we are ever ready to fine-tune processes and procedures in order to serve Nigerians better.
“The Commission wishes to reassure Nigerians that we will continue to take every necessary step to ensure that no registered voter is disenfranchised on account of non-collection of PVCs. Similarly, the Commission is taking urgent steps to address complaints of unavailability of the PVCs of some registered voters before the end the deadline for the collection.
“We wish to reiterate that after the deadline of Monday 11th February 2019, all uncollected PVCs will be recalled and deposited with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for safe-keeping until after the General Elections when the collection of cards and the continuous registration of voters will resume,” he said.
