The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has extended the deadline for the collection of permanent voter cards from March 8 to March 22.
The commission, in a terse statement on Sunday by the Chief Press Secretary to its Chairman, Kayode Idowu, said “the latest extension offers the last opportunity for registered persons to collect their PVCs before the March 28 and April 11 general elections.”
“INEC hereby calls on registered persons that are yet to collect their PVCs to use this last opportunity in doing so, in order to participate in the forthcoming general elections,” Idowu added.
The commission had last Wednesday said that it had succeeded in distributing 80.24 per cent of the PVCs to their owners.
The figure indicated that 55,232,874 out of the 68,833,476 registered voters had picked their cards .
Out of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Ogun State is the only state that had yet to reach 50 per cent PVCs collection.
In the state, only 47.27 per cent (864,292) of the 1,829,534 registered voters had picked theirs.
In its reaction to the extension of deadline for the collection of the PVCs, the All Progressives Congress, APC said it was a welcome development and called on those yet to collect theirs to do so.
“Hopefully this extension will enable those who have been unable to collect their PVCs to do so. We also hope that, it will no longer be possible for people to say they cannot collect their PVCs, to that extent, it is a welcome development, ” the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed.
His counterpart in the PDP, Olisa Metuh, said the extension would enable more eligible voters to pick up their cards.
“The extension is good. It will enable more eligible voters pick up their cards,” Metuh told one of our correspondents in Abuja.
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