The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed that a total of 239,746 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were uncollected in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states ahead of the September 11 governorship polls.
INEC National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun disclosed this in a statement issued on Monday after the meeting of the commission aimed at reviewing the ongoing preparations for the off-cycle governorship elections in the three States.
He said: “As was done in recent elections, including the 2023 General Election, the Commission is publishing the comprehensive information of collected and uncollected Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) in the three States on polling unit basis.
“The information also gives the distribution of the polling units by Local Government Areas, Registration Areas/Wards, the names of the polling units, their code numbers, number of registered voters and the number of collected as well as uncollected PVCs.”
Olumekun noted that the list provides the names and locations of the two polling units in Bayelsa State and 38 in Imo State without registered voters.
He added: “The breakdown for the three States indicates that out of 1,056,862 registered voters in Bayelsa State, 1,017,613 have collected their PVCs and 39, 249 are uncollected.
“In Imo State, the number of registered voters is 2,419,922 out of which 2,318,919 have collected their PVCs and 101,003 are uncollected, while in Kogi State, out of 1,932,654 registered voters, 1,833,160 have collected their PVCs and leaving 99,494 uncollected.”
The National Commissioner noted that the detailed information has been uploaded to the Commission’s website www.inecnigeria.org
The commission warned that any vote from a polling unit in excess of the number of PVCs collected amounts to over voting.
It stressed that the number of PVCs collected would be used for the computation of the margin of lead principle.