Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, says 322, 351 people have enrolled for the Permanent Voters Cards, PVC in Cross River State, South-South Nigeria.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, for Cross River State, Dr. Cyril Omorogbe made this known at a press briefing in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State.
Dr. Omorogbe, who was in the company of the commission’s top officials, said “the total completed registration recorded in Cross River State at the close of CVR – Continuous Voters Registration – is 322,351. This is an improvement compared to the figures we recorded last September.
“The next step is to clean up the register, which involves sorting out those, who did double registration and generally get the register ready 90 days ahead of the general election. The commission also attended to 58,305 voter transfers to other locations within and outside Cross River as well as 20,822 PVC replacements for those with defaced or blurred pictures or details on their voter cards,” Omorogbe said.
He further disclosed that the commission deployed 73 voter enrolment machines to the 19 registration centres across the state, noting “we sent 3 or 4 registration machines to each of the 18 local government areas and kept some here at the state office, where we attended to a crowd two weeks to the end of the registration exercise.”
PVC collection
According to the REC, the new PVC would be available for collection in October 2022 to be distributed alongside those received in April 2022.
Omorogbe decried the slow response to the call for previously registered voters to visit the local government offices for the PVCs, a situation he described as discouraging.
“In April this year, we received 27,158 new PVCs for distribution to their owners. At the close of this registration exercise on Sunday, only 3,897 cards were collected, leaving an outstanding 23,261 PVCs. It is important to note that this set of PVCs is for people, who registered from June to December 2021.
“I must say that the commission has over 45,755 PVCs from 2011 to 2018 still not collected. The old PVCs left over from that period were 57,310; only 11,555 people have collected their voter cards. In other words, we have not stop distributing the ready PVCs, we are using this opportunity to urge all those that registered here in Cross River to come and collect their PVCs,” he urged.
On the just concluded CVR process, Omorogbe explained that the commission would display a temporary voter register for seven days to enable people raise claims and objections after which INEC will print and distribute the PVCs to the owners and make the register available 90 days before the general election in 2023.
He assured the people that the commission was taking step to ensure that appropriate measures are in place ahead of the 2023 general elections.
He commended and the staff for the support, dedication and hard work as well as passion to capture all those, who participated in the registration process irrespective of challenging terrain in parts of the state.
Confidence Okwuchi
