In a data published by a research platform, Deepdive Intelligence it revealed that 13.5 million Nigerians voted in the last presidential elections without the Permanent Voters Cards. The 2010 Electoral Act created a window for INEC to allow prospective voters whose names appeared on its manual voters register to be allowed to vote. The Act also allowed voters whose finger prints were not captured by the Card Reader to use INEC Incident Form.
According to the data, in 10 northern states where the PVCs were waived for the manual register, the incumbent president and All Progressives Congress, (APC) candidate won in 9 as against one state won by the immediate past president and candidate of the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Dr Goodluck Jonathan.
The report read in part: “Of the 31,746,490 accredited voters in the election, 13,536,311 representing 42.6 percent of voters voted without biometric accreditation.
Out of this number, 10,184,720 votes are from states won by Buhari and 3,351,591 votes came from states won by Jonathan, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, representing 75 percent and 25 percent of accredited voters respectively.
Speaking with Sunday Tribune on phone, INEC Director Voters’ Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzi declared comments on the findings.
He said:” I haven’t read the report you are talking about. In fact, I don’t comment on stories published by a faceless group or any online platform. “