The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has explained why its staff were copying details of uncollected Permanent Voter Cards into their mobile phones as seen on a video on social media.
Its clarification is coming after the video was uploaded on Twitter with the poster alleging that staff were “stealing voters card information” to sell to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 elections.
Breaking INEC Officials in lagos State Caught on Camera Stealing Voters card information from processed cards to sell out to APC for 2023 election.Institutional weakness makes them feel untouchable you have to act quick, bring @inecnigeria to book. Bringing a stop this Fraud to pic.twitter.com/2AEFnR0KOI
— Jehu יֵהוּא Yehu (@victor_uwak) December 5, 2022
On Wednesday, INEC chairman of Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, said the action was to ease the process of PVC collection.
He released a statement explaining that the staff were extracting Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) from old PVCs and entering them into their phones so they can be manually uploaded on the commission’s portal.
This will make it easy for the card owners to log online with their name, date of birth, and state of registration in order to verify the status of their cards and the pickup locations.
Okoye said the VINs of newer PVCs, mainly those from the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) that took place in 2022, were harvested automatically.
“For the older uncollected PVCs that predated the new guidelines, their VINs must be harvested manually and painstakingly for upload to the PVC collection portal (www.voters.inecnigeria.org),” he explained.
“The portal will also improve the records of the Commission regarding collected and uncollected PVCs.”
The INEC commissioner appreciated the vigilance of Nigerians and their determination to see the conduct of free, fair, credible, and inclusive elections in 2023, but urged that information be verified before sharing with the public.
He reminded Nigerians that all uncollected PVCs will be available for collection at INEC’s 774 local government offices nationwide from 12 December 2022 to 5 January 2023.
