Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has extended the time frame for the collection of Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs from January 29 to February 5, 2023.

INEC in a press release made available few minutes ago and signed by its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye indicated that the commission decided to extend the collection of the PVCs by one week to enable all citizens have the voter’s card ahead of the general elections slated for February, 2023.

“The Commission met today, Saturday, 28th January 2023, a day after its meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) from the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal capital Territory, Abuja and deliberated on a number of issues, including the reports from RECs on the ongoing collection of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) in its 774 Local Government Offices nationwide.

“It will be recalled that at the meeting with RECs on Friday, 27th January 2023, the
Chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu indicated that the Commission will not hesitate to consider additional measures to ensure that all
citizens have ample opportunity to collect their PVCs ahead of the General Election.

“Having reviewed reports from all the States of the Federation, the Commission is
encouraged by the progress made so far as more Nigerians troop out daily to collect their PVCs.

“Arising from reports from the various States and discussions with Resident Electoral Commissioners, the Commission has decided to further extend PVC
collection in all its Local Government Offices nationwide by an additional one
week.

“The ongoing collection of PVCs nationwide will therefore continue and end on 5th February 2023.

“This is the second time the Commission is extending PVC collection nationwide and this will be the last extension of the exercise.

“Collection period has further been extended by an additional two hours and will start at 9 a.m and end at 5pm daily including Saturdays and Sundays.

“Those that engaged in double and multiple registration should not bother visiting any of the Commission’s Offices as the Commission did not print their PVCs.

“The Commission will continue to act on all reported cases of sharp practices during the ongoing PVC collection and will ensure that no Nigerian is disadvantaged and all
those that carried out valid registration have an opportunity of collecting their
PVCs.

“The Commission once again salutes the patience and doggedness of citizens”, the INEC press release reads.

It would be recalled that INEC had earlier extended the ocollection of PVCs at the registration Area (Ward) level from January 16 to 22, 2023 while collection at Local Government level will commenced from January 23 to 29.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had said 93.4 million persons are eligible to vote in the forthcoming 2023 elections.

The electoral Commission gave the geographical break down of of the eligible voters to be Northwest: 22.25 million, Northeast: 12.54 million, North Central: 15.36 million, Southeast: 10.90 million, Southwest: 17.95 million and South-South: 14.44 million.