The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday reacted to the allegation that it was hoarding voter cards, assuring that all registered voters must get their permanent voters’ cards (PVCs).
INEC also explained the circumstances that led to the alleged 1.4 million names said to be missing from the voters register.
The commission’s reaction came as the All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday expressed concern over the three-day distribution of the Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) in 12 states, alleging that the process was intentionally programmed to fail in order to disenfranchise voters in the states with the highest number of voters.
INEC said it was true that after the 2011 general election that Lagos State had 6.1 million voters, but it was subjected to the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) where 82,892 were discovered to be double registrant.
In a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Kayode Idowu, the commission said that it was strongly committed to ensuring that every properly registered voter get his/her PVC for the 2015 general election.
According to the statement, “Contrary to the allegations in some quarters, no duly registered person has been delisted from the register of voters; neither will any be denied his/her PVC.
“This reassurance is against the backdrop of temporary challenges that have been experienced in the third phase of the distribution of PVCs in some states, which the Commission has been making vigorous efforts to remediate.”
It further said the commission had since last Friday, been distributing PVCs to registered voters in nine states across the country under the third phase of the exercise.
According to INEC, “Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) is scheduled to hold in the same states from Wednesday, November 12 to Monday, November 17. Similar exercises have already been conducted in 24 other states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) under the first and the second phases of the programme.
“The commission deferred the distribution of PVCs in four other states it had earlier listed for this third phase because the cards for those states have not been fully delivered by printers. It is partly for the same reason that the commission rescheduled the distribution of PVCs in limited areas of Lagos and Nasarawa States. The outstanding cards will, however, be certainly distributed in good time before the 2015 general election.
“They are presently being produced and have been scheduled for distribution under the fourth phase of the exercise from Friday, November 28 to Sunday, November 30 2014.”
In particular, INEC said: “It is completely false that INEC has removed the records of 1.4 million persons from the register of voters compiled in 2011 in Lagos State. It is true that at the end of the 2011 general registration exercise, the commission announced a figure of 6.1 million registrants in the state. But when that data was subjected to the Automated Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) software, 82,892 multiple registrations were eliminated.
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