The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will test the card reader technology in two states of each geo-political zone to ensure mastery of the card readers before the elections.
Addressing journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, the National Director in charge of Information and Voter Education, Dr Chris Iyimoga, said “the total figure for Permanent Vote Cards distribution stands at 55 million, representing 80 per cent collection”.
He further noted that smart card readers had been distributed to the states, maintaining that each of the Polling Units had gotten the card readers ready.
They were configurated for the elections as earlier scheduled but have now been re-configured for the rescheduled elections on March 28 and April 11.
“Even though the commission has satisfactorily tested the smart card readers before the re-scheduling of the elections, it is to further conduct more rigorous field testing of the card readers which will be deployed for the accreditation of voters on Election Day.
“Two states from each of the six geopolitical zones of the federation will be involved in the testing which will take place simultaneously this Friday, March 7,” he said.
The states selected for the exercise are Ekiti, Lagos, Anambra, Ebonyi, Delta and Rivers. Others include Kano, Kebbi, Bauchi, Taraba, Niger and Nasarawa.
He maintained that “in the course of the field testing, Resident Electoral Commissioners of the selected states would select one registration area with full compliments of the PVCs and appreciable distribution rate of the PVCs wher the filed test would be undertaken.
They are also to ensure that the register of voters in respect of all Polling Units designated registration areas are printed for the exercise.
The 2015 general elections was initially scheduled to take place on February 14 and 28 but were postponed to March 28 and April 11 due to security concerns.
Issues of insecurity in the north-eastern part of the nation, which had been on for over five years was cited by the electoral bod as its reason for the postponement the election. It said it was advised by security chiefs to shift the election by six weeks to enable them secure the area and make room for every Nigerian to take part in the election.
