The Permanent Voter Cards of eligible voters who are only finishing their registration may not be ready until January 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission warned on Tuesday.
Yahaya Bello, the Federal Capital Territory’s resident electoral commissioner, said this at a briefing in Abuja before Saturday’s Youth Vote Count Mega Music Concert.
The European Union, Yiaga Africa, and INEC worked together to organize the Youth Vote Count Mega Music Concert.
During the event on Tuesday, Bello issued a warning, stating that “anyone just registering cannot immediately collect them until after the end of the whole exercise.”
“I want to make it clear that the PVCs you see people collecting now are from 2011, 2019 and last year. Those who are participating now till June 30 won’t be able to collect theirs now.
“It is a process that will allow us to print these cards. The collection of the PVCs will not commence until the first month of 2023 and it will be done in person, not by proxies.
“Let me also appeal to Nigerians to be civil in the course of this laudable initiative. If we fail to behave ourselves in an orderly fashion, it will only give room for people who want to cause commotion to steal our phones and wallets,” he appealed.
Bello declined to respond when asked if INEC would extend the registration deadline, stating that he was only a REC.
“I think INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Prof Festus Okoye, would have been in a better position to answer that,” he said.
Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman Rotimi Oyekamni responded to the proposed extension by saying that it was not impossible because the INEC has a “very good history of complying with the court order.”
We’re going to do that, but keep in mind that once a case is in court, talking about it is prohibited.
In order to prevent INEC from discontinuing the ongoing voter registration, a Federal High Court in Abuja issued an order.
Following the hearing of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project’s motion ex-parte argument, Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon issued an order of interim injunction, according to the court’s decision.
In order to give the commission time to clean up its database before the general election in 2023, the electoral body had announced that the voter registration process would stop on Thursday, June 30.
