INEC worries over non-collection of 158,790 PVCs in A’Ibom

Ini Billie, Uyo

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said 158,790 permanent voter’s cards (PVCs) have not been collected in Akwa Ibom State.

Akwa Ibom State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Obo Effanga said the figure represented 7 percent uncollected PVCs, saying 2,198, 628 PVCs representing 93 percent have been collected out of a total of 2,357, 418 registered voters.

Speaking on Thursday in Uyo during his maiden media briefing, Effanga said the commission will open its portal for the online Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) process in Akwa Ibom State on August 18, ahead of the 2027 general elections.

He stated that the physical registration will begin on August 25 at the INEC headquarters in Uyo, and INEC offices in the 31 local government headquarters of the state.

He explained that from August 25, those who started the online registration process could visit either the state office or local government office headquarters to capture their fingerprints and photographs to complete the registration process.

The REC said the exercise would give room for those who want to effect some corrections or changes on their cards, carry out card transfers or did not collect their PVCs to have their concerns addressed.

Effanga cautioned against multiple registrations, noting that for card loss, the persons concerned should go for reprinting of their cards in the office as any attempt to register again would invalidate the whole process.

“In the next couple of weeks INEC will start again the process of the Continuous Voter Registration. Starting on the 18th of August, we will have opportunity for people to do the online pre registration of processes and then from 25 August you’ll have the walk-in physical process.

“Now this is not going to be different from what we did prior to 2023.You know that INEC has created a portal where members of the public who want to register to vote can process, go online, start the process and then only come to us physically for the capture of the photographs and fingerprints for the registration process to be completed.

“If you want to do a transfer from one location to another, there’s a mistake in the information we have about you maybe your address, your name was misspelt or any of those things that you want to make corrections on, you can actually do this from the comfort of your home without coming to INEC. “For those who didn’t collect their cards prior to now, and if there’s any correction they want done to the card, they can do that. But from the 18th, people who have access to the Internet, they can do the transfer. People also want to migrate from one polling unit to another, you can do that through the Internet or you come to us physically from the 25th,” he stated.