Why Over 6.3m Voters Won’t Vote, By INEC

A total of 6,259,229 registered voters who were unable to collect their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), will not vote in tomorrow’s presidential and National Assembly elections. This is about 6.7 per cent of the total of registered voters in the country. This information was contained in a document released yesterday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which also said the number of collected PVCs was 87, 209, 007, which is 93.3 per cent of registered voters. The Commission had disclosed that the total number of registered voters in the country stood at 93, 469, 008.

INEC had started distribution of PVCs to newly registered voters on December 12 last year, but as at February 5 when the process ended, the Commission said 6.7 per cent of the registered voters were unable to collect theirs.

Lagos has the highest number of 845, 255 (or 12%) out of the 7, 060, 195 registered voters in the state, although the state at same time, recorded the highest number of collected PVCs. About Lagos, some other states in the South West with high number of uncollected PVCs are Oyo, 515,254 (15.7%) and Ogun with 410,281 (15.3%). Kano State with 5, 921, 370 registered voters, has uncollected PVCs of 327, 177 (5.5%). Uncollected PVCs in Kaduna and Rivers States are 170,735 (3.9%), and 251, 418 (7.1%) of total number of registered voters respectively.

INEC has begun daily briefings of its preparations for this weekend’s national election.