PVC collection now 78 percentage- INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission has put the percentage of Permanent Voter Cards collected by voters at 78.93 per cent.This was contained in the report released by the commission in Abuja on Friday.

The figure was based on the report released by the commission on Friday.

While it put the number of registered voters at 68,833,476, it added that it had delivered 67,206,600 PVCs across the country.

However, the commission said that only 54,327,747, which represents 78.93 percent of the cards, had been collected.Jigawa, Gombe and Akwa Ibom States top the list of states with highest collection of PVCs.While Jigawa State has a total of 1,831,276 registered voters, 1,794,646 of them had picked their PVCs. This figure represents 98 per cent of PVCs collection.

Gombe State with 1,120,023 registered voters has recorded the collection of 1,064,577 PVCs which amounts to 95 per cent. Akwa Ibom State came third with 94.46 percent PVC collection out of its 1,680,759 registered voters. This means that 1,587,566 voters had picked their PVCs. Leading from the rear is Ogun State where only  808,590 out of the 1,829,534 registered voters had collected their PVCs.

This figure represents a mere 44.20 per cent.

However, the figure released by the commission indicated that 1,387,401 PVCs had been delivered to the state.In the Federal Capital Territory, only 62 per cent of the 881,472 registered voters had collected their PVCs. Lagos State with 5,822,207 registered voters had recorded 63.44 per cent of the PVCs collection. This shows that 3,693,355 of the cards had been picked by their owners.

But the commission said that 5,558,062cards had been delivered for voters in the state. Meanwhile, the commission has also explained the use of Card Readers for the elections.

It said for the the first time in Nigeria’s electoral history, electronic voter authentication system, with the aid of smart card readers, is being deployed for the 2015 general elections. In an explanatory note, the commission said Card Readers have enormous advantages.

Once configured, the Card Reader can only read PVCs issued by INEC, adding that any  person that shows up at the polling unit without a PVC or with a cardnot issued by INEC will not be allowed to vote.

The commission added that the “Card Reader reads the embedded chip on thePVC, not the barcode, and it shares a secret code with the PVC; thus it is impossible to falsify the cards.

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