We Are Considering Burning Unclaimed PVCs -INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday said it may consider the option of burning the unclaimed Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) before the 2019 general elections in order to have credible and transparent election.
The commission said the action was to sanitize the electoral lists and register before the election.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the Ondo state, Mr. Rufus Akeju, made the disclosure during a chat with journalists in Akure, the state capital.
According to the INEC boss, the unclaimed PVCs might have belonged to those who only visited the state during the registration and decided to register during the period.
Akeju said, the people may abandoned the cards since they have moved outside the state to another state.
He said the visitors may include the federal civil servants, graduated students or the members National Youth Service Corps posted to the state or transiting for just a short period of stay.
His words, “These set of people who owns these unclaimed PVCs might have moved out of the state to another location either by transits as students or NYSC members and left them in our offices” .
While saying the electoral commission had made several attempts to reach out to owners of the unclaimed Permanent Voters Cards through enlightenment and public advocacy, Akeju said all the efforts have not yielded any positive result.
He said, “We (NEC) may have to dispose the yet unclaimed Permanent Voters Cards as many of them have been linked to double registration or an attempt by politicians to have their way during the elections
“In fact, we might also even decide not to burn them but probably pour chemical on them but all our attempt is to protect the integrity of the elections but we are yet to really decide on it,” he said.
The REC further reiterated that a total of 370, 464 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were yet to be collected in Ondo state.
He said that the cards were being kept across the offices of the Independent National Commission (INEC) in the 18 local government areas of the state.
Akeju added that the state had been able to distributes a total of 1, 288, 722 cards in preparation for the election.
According to the REC, there is no going back in ensuring a very transparent and credible general elections in Ondo state in 2019.
He also informed that the commission had possessed new and improved Data Capturing Machine for the smooth run of the ongoing Voters registration.
