The Independent National Electoral Commission in Lagos State said after one month it flagged-off distribution of about 34,000 newly printed Permanent Voter Cards for new registrants, only 3,000 applicants have come for collection across the state.
Olusegun Agbaje, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, made this known on Tuesday at a news conference on ‘Youth Vote Count’, an awareness campaign to mobilise and get youths registered in the Continuous Voter Registration, held at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos.
The exercise organised by INEC in collaboration with the EU Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria, the Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement and other partners would culminate in a mega music concert on Saturday at the same venue.
“Already, we have about 34, 000 new PVCs for those who registered between June 2021 and December 2021.
“But it is very disturbing that since April this year when we brought out these cards for people to collect, as of last Monday, only 3,000 PVCs have been collected by their owners.
“I told my electoral officers in various local government areas to call the owners on the phone to come for their PVCs, but people want us to bring them to their houses.
“This is not possible, we must be ready to make some sacrifices and efforts to go and collect their PVCs,” he said.
The INEC boss said that the CVR would end on June 30, adding that INEC didn’t have any intention of extending this closing date for registration.
He said that though INEC had captured a significant number of people in the ongoing CVR expected to end on June 30, there were lots of qualified Nigerians, especially the youth who had not shown up.
Agbaje said that about 1,000 prospective voters were registered on the first day of the ‘Youth Vote Count’ awareness and mobilisation that started Monday at TBS, with 50 CVR machines deployed.
On the mega music concert slated for Saturday at TBS, Agbaje said that various artistes would be on ground to foreground the need for youth to get involved, saying that the only access card would be PVCs or Temporary Voter Cads.
