By Seyi Babalola
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) distributed 55,859 permanent voter cards ahead of next month’s gubernatorial election in Ondo State.
Sam Olumekun, National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee confirmed this in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Olumekun said that the commission’s local government offices will not be used to collect PVCs.
According to the statement, for five days, the commission made the PVCs from the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) in Ondo State available for collection in all 203 wards across the state.
The commission, therefore, appealed to the remaining voters to pick up their PVCs from their local government offices, reiterating its policy that no cards would be collected by proxy.
“The commission is pleased to announce that at the end of the five days, 55,859 cards were personally collected by new registrants and applicants for transfer and replacement of lost or damaged cards as provided by law. This figure represents 62.2% of the 89,777 cards available for collection.
“This is the highest percentage of PVCs collected in five days in Ondo State since the commission introduced the CVR in 2015. A detailed breakdown of the collection by local government areas has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for public information.
“Meanwhile, the collection will resume in our 18 local government offices in Ondo State from tomorrow (Wednesday, October 23) to Tuesday, October 29, 2024, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm daily (including the weekend). Detailed information on the locations of our local government offices in Ondo State is already available on our website,” the statement read.