WE DEREGISTERED 2.7 MILLION DOUBLE REGISTRANTS ~INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission on Tuesday said new Permanent Voter Cards will be made available by November.

INEC Chairman Prof Mahmoud Yakubu said this at a National Endowment for Democracy event in Washington DC in the United States.

Yakubu said 2.7 million double registrations were weeded out of the last Continuous Voters Registration exercise conducted by the commission.

According to him, about 50% of the new PVCs are ready but yet to be distributed to collection centres.

He also raised concerns about the rising levels of insecurity across the country, saying the Commission has its “fingers crossed”.

“It is a perennial issue because, at the end of the day, it is not new but the dimension of the insecurity is new in the sense that in the past, it was localised or confined to a particular part of the country – the North-East but now, it is more widespread,” he said.

“We are keeping our eyes, particularly, on the North-West and the South-Eastern part of the country. Elections are conducted by human beings. We worry about the security of our officials, materials, and even the voters themselves. Without them, elections cannot be conducted. ”

The INEC chief, however, said they “have spoken to the security agencies and they have assured us that the situation will improve before the elections. So, fingers crossed.”