The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC says it has commenced the distribution of 128,396 Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs at the ward level across the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in preparation for the Area Council Election scheduled for 21st of next month.
The FCT Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Malam Aminu Idris stated this at a media briefing on INEC’s preparedness for the exercise in Abuja.
Alhaji Idris said the PVC collection at the Ward level would continue across the 62 Registration Areas in the six Area Councils of the FCT till the end of the month before the collection would continue at the INEC Area Council offices.
He explained that the PVCs are available for collection include cards for newly registered voters, voters who transferred their registration within the FCT, those who requested replacement for lost or defaced PVCs, as well as cards from previous registration exercises yet to be collected.
He maintained that the Permanent Voter Card remained the only valid document for voter accreditation and that the PVCs would not be issued by proxy .
Providing an update on voter registration figures, the REC said that following the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise in the FCT on 12th October last year, a total of 106,855 persons registered as new voters.
After the duplication exercise, 102,307 valid new voters were added to the register, bringing the total number of registered voters in the FCT to 1,680,315, compared to 1,570,307 recorded during the 2023 General Election.
He also revealed that the FCT recorded 8,476 transfers into the territory and 775 transfers out.
On the Commission’s preparedness, Malam Idris said that they had received and the non-sensitive materials, activated the Bimodal Voter Accreditation Systems, BVAS, completed the accreditation of Observers, Media, Polling agents and ad-hoc election staff.
He further explained that INEC had intensified Voter Education and sensitisation, published the final register of voters for the election, strengthened collaboration with security agencies through the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) and initiated engagements with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) to ensure seamless logistics on election day.
Malam Idris reaffirmed INEC’s commitment to conducting a free, fair, inclusive and credible FCT Area Council election next month .
Editing by Adeniyi Bakare
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