The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has released the list of permanent voter cards collected for the 2019 general elections with Lagos State topping the list, followed by Kano and Kaduna states, respectively.
The chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu who released the figures in Abuja yesterday during the fourth daily press briefing on the preparations for the polls said 5,531,389 people collected PVCs in Lagos State, followed by Kano State with 4,696,747 PVCs.
It would be recalled that in 2015, while Kano came first with 4,112,039, Lagos came second with 3,799,274.
In Kaduna State, 3,648,831 persons picked up their PVCs followed closely by Katsina State with 3,187,988 cards collected. Rivers State rounds up the top five with 2,833,101 PVCs collected.
In terms of percentage of registered voters that collected PVCs, the statistics showed that Lagos is not in the top 10 with 84.19 per cent of the 6,570,291 registered voters in the state collecting their PVCs. 1,038,902 million voters (the highest for any state) did not collect PVCs in Lagos State.
According to INEC statistics, Katsina State has the highest percentage of PVCs collected with 98.69 percent of registered voters in the state collecting their PVCs.
It was followed by Taraba State with 97.30 percent of registered voters getting their PVCs, while 95.76 percent of Nigerians registered to vote in Gombe collected their cards.
Kebbi State and Bauchi State followed with 95.13 and 94.84 percent of registered voters getting their PVCs in both states, respectively.
Yakubu also said the total number of PVCs collected for the 2019 elections stands at 72,775,502.
The commission which had about 84,004,084 registered voters, also said a total of 11,228,582 PVCs representing 13.37 per cent were uncollected.
“The last day for the collection of PVCs was Monday, February 11, 2019, out of the 84,004,084 registered voters, the total number of registered voters stands at 72,775,502, which represents 86 .83 per cent of the PVCs.’’
He said a total of 11,228,582 printed PVCs or 13.7 per cent were uncollected.
“Out of this figure 7,817,905 PVCs were carried over from the 2014 to 2016 registration exercise, while 3,410,677 are from the last CVR held between April 2017 and August 2018.
“All uncollected cards have been deposited with the CBN for custody,” he added.
On the deployment of election materials, Yakubu disclosed that 19 states had fully deployed election materials including the non-sensitive materials to the local government areas, except for Bayelsa State where materials would be deployed directly from the state INEC office.
“There is no state that has not commenced deployment to local government areas. In fact, 19 states have fully deployed. By the end of the day, all states and the FCT would have deployed, expect Bayelsa State which is moving direct from our state office in Yenagoa to Registration Area Centres (RACs) tomorrow (today).
“Tomorrow (today) activities at the ward level will commence with the activation of the RACs at 9 am, while the movement of personnel and materials will commence at the midday.
“This is the last scheduled course to the last deployment to 119, 973 polling units leading to the opening of polls at 8am in the morning of Saturday,” he said.
On the commission’s readiness to conduct the polls, Yakubu said the exercise would go as scheduled.
“We are fully on course. There is no state that has not commenced the deployment to local government areas. In fact, 19 states have fully deployed. By the end of the day, all states and FCT would have deployed, except Bayelsa State which is moving direct from our State office in Yenagoa to the RACs tomorrow.
“Tomorrow, activities at ward level will commence with the activation of the Registration Area Centres (RACs) at 9.00am while the movement of personnel and materials will commence at mid-day. This is the last staging post before deployment to 119,973 polling units leading to the opening of polls at 8.00am on Saturday (tomorrow).
“I want to assure the nation that going by our revised timetable and schedule of activities, this deployment will be concluded today. We are fully prepared for the elections.
“There is no state that has not commenced the deployment of electoral materials to the local government areas. In fact, 19 states have fully deployed.
“By the end of the day, all the states and FCT would have deployed, except Bayelsa State which is moving direct from our state office in Yenagoa to the Registration Area Centres tomorrow.”
