- Registered Voters: 66.5m
- Voters with PVCs: 54.43m
- Uncollected PVCs: 7.8m
- Unprinted PVCs: 4.23m
Few days ago, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, unveiled a four year strategic plan with a view to consolidating on the 76 percent implementation rate of the last strategic plan which ended in 2016.
At a Stakeholder Validation Conference on INEC’s Strategic Plan 2017-2021 in Abuja, civil rights activist, Dr Otive Igbuzor who presented the plan, said the strategic objectives of the plan are to “provide electoral operations, systems and infrastructure to support delivery of free, fair and credible election”.
Part of the objectives is to also increase voter education, training and research; register political parties and monitor their operations as well as strengthening INEC for a sustained conduct of free, fair and credible election.
The plan will also focus on the mandate of INEC “and improvement on logistics in spite of the challenges from the environment especially political culture, security and conflicting court judgments”.
Unfortunately, while the document listed several objectives, it was however silent on how it plans to scale up efforts at ensuring that the over 7.8 million uncollected Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, are distributed, especially as this figure is set to increase going by plans to commence the Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, this month. The plan was also silent on the vexed issues of constituency delineation as well as re-calibration of existing polling units.
Although, INEC has evolved a monitoring mechanism for the plan, the document would, however, undergo a midterm review in 2019 after the expected general elections. Interestingly, at a recent meeting with civil society groups in the country, INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, hinted that apart from the 7.8 million PVCs that are yet uncollected, the commission also has to embark on the production of some PVCs which have not been printed since the last general elections.
He said; “There are some we have not printed from the last general elections; so, we are meeting some stakeholders next week in this regard to settle it”. Lagos State, according to him, has the highest number of uncollected PVCs with 1.4 million cards, followed by Oyo state (700,000) and Edo state with 540,000.
Yakubu said Ogun State has the highest percentage of least collected PVCs, while Bauchi and Zamfara, recorded the highest rate of collection by number and percentage. Sunday Vanguard checks revealed that INEC still has to print about 4.23 million PVCs even as it embarks on another CVR this month. Of the nearly 66.5 million registered voters in the country, about 54.43 million have PVCs leaving a balance of 12.03 million in uncollected and yet-to-be printed PVCs.
By regional analysis, out of the over 13.73 million registered voters in the South West, about 9.24 million have their PVCs. The rest have either not been collected or printed. In the South South with about 10.1 million registered voters, those with PVCs are 8.42 million.
For the South East with about 7.67 million registered voters, 6.62 million are armed with their PVCs. The insurgency-ravaged North East with a registered voter population of 9.12 million has about 7.92 million voters with PVCs.
The North West has the highest figure both in terms of registered voters and those with PVCs. While the zone has 16. 13 million registered voters, those with PVCs are 14.56 million.
In the North Central where there are 9.77 million registered voters, 7.66 million have their PVCs. Below is a state-by-state breakdown of the number of registered voters and their PVC collection rate.
SW R/Voters C’llted Rmrks
Lagos 5,822,20 3,799,274
Oyo 2,415,566 1,639,967
Ondo 1,524,655 1,118,479
Ogun 1,829,534 1,125,657
Ekiti 732,021 522,107
Osun 1,407,107 1.033,229
Total 13,731,090 9,238,713 67%
SOUTH SOUTH
Edo 1,779,738 1,230,566
Delta 2,275,264 1,939,952
Rivers 2,537,590 2,127,837
Bayelsa 610,373 548,585
C/River 1,175,623 983,968
Akwa Ibom 1,680,759 1,587,566
Total 10,059,347 8,418,474 83%
SOUTH EAST
Enugu 1,429,221 1,223,606
Anambra 1,963,173 1,658,967
Ebonyi 1,074,273 848,392
Abia 1,396,162 1,183,127
Imo 1,803,030 1,707,449
Total 7,665,859 6,621,541 86%
NORTH EAST
Adamawa 1,559,012 1,381,571
Yobe 1,099,970 824,401
Borno 1,934,079 1,407,777
Bauchi 2,054,125 1,967,081
Gombe 1,120,023 1,070,725
Taraba 1,340,652 1,270,889
Total 9,107,861 7,922,444 86%
NORTH WEST
Kaduna 3,407,222 3,174,519
Kano 4,975,701 4,112,039
Jigawa 1,831,276 1,757,658
Sokoto 1,611,929 1,527,004
Kebbi 1,470,648 1,372,630
Katsina 2,827,943 2,620,096
Zamfara 1,495,717 1,435,452
Total 16,124,719 14,563,946 90%
NORTH CENTRAL
Benue 2,015,452 1,607,800
Plateau 2,001,825 1,508,585
Niger 2,014,317 1,682,058
Kwara 1,142,267 889,067
Nasarawa 1,242,667 1,048,053
Kogi 1,350,883 926,013 Total: 9,767,411 7,661,576
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