68.8 Million Voters Registered For 2015 Elections, Says Jega

A total number of 68,833,476 voters were
registered by the Independent
National Electoral
Commission, INEC, for the February general
elections.
Also, over four million Nigerians were involved in
multiple registrations across the country and their
names have been successfully removed from the
voters register by the electoral body.
Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, made this
disclosure at the meeting the commission had
with the national leadership of all the 23
registered political parties in Abuja on Tuesday
evening.
Jega said, “In line with the provisions of the law,
the commission has just announced the
publications of the register of voters that will be
used for the February 2015 general elections.
“The total number of voters registered for the
elections is 68,833,476”.
The INEC chief disclosed that 38,774,391
Nigerians had collected their Permanent Voter
Cards out of the 54,341,610 that were ready as
of Monday last week.
He, however, said the commission had ordered
more PVCs and that some of them were awaiting
collection.
Jega said, “The commission has taken delivery of
additional PVCs from the contractor, and we are
positive that we will have all outstanding cards
with us by 28 January, 2015.
“For the avoidance of doubt, possession of PVCs
is a strict condition for anyone intending to vote
in the 2015 elections”.
In response to the resolutions passed by the
House of Representatives directing the
commission to allow the use of Temporary Voters
Cards in next month’s polls, he said he was not
aware of such resolution.
He nevertheless said the commission was
working with the intent of using only PVCs for the
polls.
Jega regretted that many Nigerians refused to
collect their PVCs, adding that in order to address
this, the commission had directed all resident
electoral commissioners to further decentralise
the distribution of the cards to the ward level.
The time for the distribution, he added, had also
been fixed from 8.30am to 5.30pm, from
Monday to Saturday.
He also said contrary to the doubt being
entertained in some quarters, the INEC would use
card readers for the elections.
Jega added, “INEC will use card readers for the
elections. Th commission has taken delivery of
more than 130,000 units of these card readers,
and we are on schedule to receive the remaining
quantity before the end of January”.
He announced that deployment of the card
readers to states had commended.