Ahead of the February 2015 general elections, civil rights activists have appealed to the Independent National Electoral Commission to ensure the availability of Permanent Voters Card (PVC) to all registered voters.
The activists, who are members of the Youth initiative for advocacy, growth and advancement, made the appeal while presenting an observatory report on the PVC in Abuja on Friday.
The Head of research, policy and advocacy of the organisation, Mr Samson Itodo, said there was palpable fear amongst the youths that they may be disenfranchised due to inadequate production of the PVCs.
He appealed to INEC to device new methods of providing the voters cards to all eligible registered voters.
The challenge of poor distribution of PVC across Nigeria has been a major issue and tge activists’ statement gain brought to the front burner as they presented its report on the issuance of the cards.
The Head of Research, Policy and Advocacy of the organisation, Mr Samson Itodo, identified areas the electoral body needed to address before the elections.
Allaying the fears of registered voters on tge PVC issue, the Head of Enlightenment of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the Federal Capital Territory, Mr Okezie Nwankwo, announced the decentralisation of collection centres to enable registered voters pick up their cards in the FCT.
He said the efforts would be replicated in other states with low rate of collection.
With over 54 million permanent voters card received as at January 7, 2015, the Electoral body said it had distributed over 38 million which is about 71 per cent of the cards.
The Commission, therefore, appealed to registered voters to pick up their cards before the end of January so that the over 15.5 million cards yet to be collected will be cleared.
