The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed the possibility of extending the deadline for the collection of the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) especially in those states that has recorded low collection.
Prof. Mahmud Yakubu disclosed this during a stakeholders meeting held in Abuja yesterday.
Earlier deadline for the collection of the PVCs was Friday, 8th February, 2019. However, during the stakeholders meeting on the 2019 general election, the INEC boss revealed the commissioned would meet with the Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs of the 36 states of the federation in Abuja and will review the collection rate and take decisive decision.
Prof. Yakubu added, “Some of you will wonder that the collection deadline of PVCs is tomorrow which is Friday, the 8 of November. The Commission is going to meet today after this meeting, subsequently, we are going to hold another meeting with security agencies and where it is necessary, we will review the arrangement for the collection of PVCs. No Nigerian is going to be disenfranchised for which is not their fault.
Meanwhile, on ad hoc staff, he said; “We have three categories; we have the supervisory presiding officers. We have the presiding officers and assistant presiding officers 1, 2 and 3. The third category is the collation and returning officers. Our State offices are responsible for the recruitment and training of the first two categories. We have given them a node with the processes and we are going to do refresher training before the election”.
The INEC Chairman who further revealed that State Resident Electoral Commissioners have been mandated to meet with Commissioners of Police in their respective States to decide on the deployment of Security, also they are to meet with their State Chapters of Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers to implement the earlier signed Memorandum of Understanding to ensure that election staff and materials are moved to various polling units before the arrival of voters at 8 am on election day.
