By Ife Osemedua
365Daily – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has commenced the distribution of over 23,000 permanent voter cards (PVCs) to their owners in Ebonyi State.
This was disclosed by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Mr. Joseph Chukwuemeka in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday, April 27, 2022, in Abakaliki.
He said the PVCs were from the first and second quarter phases of the registration exercise and urged voters who registered during the period to visit the INEC local government area offices to collect their cards.
While warning that collection would not be done by proxy, he said: “We took delivery of 23,248 permanent voter cards from the INEC’s headquarters, Abuja on April 20, and distribution has commenced.
“The voter cards are from the first and second quarter registrations that started in June 28, 2021 and ended around Feb. 14.
“I want to use this opportunity to appeal to all eligible voters who registered within these periods to avail themselves of the opportunity and collect their own.”
He also warned prospective registrants against double registration, noting that the state recorded about 34,980 invalid registrations during the first and second quarter registrations.
“I have in so many fora cautioned against double registration. In the INEC of today we are equal to the task when it comes to exhibiting transparency.
“We have improved our technology and registration devices deployed for this registration. They are capable of detecting multiple registrations and invalidate any of such double registrations.
“If you do any double registration our machine will detect it. If you register two times we will take only one; if you register 20 or 100 times we will take only one entry,” the REC added.
Chukwuemeka, who gave statistical breakdown of the first and second quarter registrations said that the commission registered over 58, 228 voters.
He said that 23,248 were valid registrations while 34,980 were recorded as invalid registrations representing 60.1 per cent of the total number of registrations within the period.
“I enjoin our people in Ebonyi to desist from double registration because if you register 1,000 times, our machine will only take one and void the rest,” he said.
The REC also announced that the commission had started an off-line registration exercise aimed at capturing prospective voters living in areas without effective telephone network coverage.
He said that the commission had deployed 14 machines to each of the 13 LGAs in the state and INEC state headquarters for the purpose of the exercise.
Chukwuemeka further said that the commission was poised to ensure that every eligible voter was registered irrespective of where the person was residing.
“The off-line registration is a process whereby people in the remote areas where we do not have effective network are captured; the machine and software meant for such areas have been provided.
“We have activated the process and machines have been deployed to the various remote areas where they will be used to register the people,” he said.