INEC may extend deadline for collection of PVCs ― Chairman INEC

THE Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) may extend the deadline for collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), National Chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu gave this indication on Thursday at the National Stakeholders’ Forum on the 2019 general elections in Abuja.

Nigerian Tribune checks revealed that the Commission had earlier given today, February 8 as the deadline.

Professor Yakubu said his Commission would take the decision to review the deadline after a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT to review the exercise. He said the meeting became necessary in view of genuine complaints from State with the highest number of unclaimed PVCs.

He assured the gathering of stakeholders that his Commission would not postpone the forthcoming elections, despite insinuations in certain quarters.

He said:” I want to assure stakeholders that INEC is prepared for the election. Let me assure the stakeholders and the nation that Smart Card Readers will be deployed in the 2019 general elections. The next issue is voter register and permanent voter cards. We have a lot of complaints from citizens, however, the complaints are coming from those who have damaged their PVCs and require replacement, as well as those who applied for transfer and relocation but the cards have not been found.

“Some of you will ask that the last day for the correction of PVCs is tomorrow which is Friday, the 8 of November. The Commission is going to meet today after this forum and the next meeting we are going to hold is with security agencies and where it is necessary we will review the arrangement for the collection of PVCs. No Nigerian is going to be disenfranchised for the fault of his or fault of hers.

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“We have three categories of ad hoc staff; we have the supervisory presiding officers, as a category. We have the presiding officers and assistant presiding officers 1, 2 and 3. The third categories are the collation and returning officers. Our State offices are responsible for the recruitment and training of the first two categories. We are satisfied with the processes including and we are going to do refresher training before the election.”

He further disclosed that about 148 observer groups have been accredited for the elections and would be allowed to move around polling units across the country on election day.

Professor Yakubu said Resident Electoral Commissioners have been mandated to meet with Commissioners of Police in their respective States to decide on the deployment of Security and equally liaise with   State Chapters of Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers to implement the earlier signed memoranda of Understanding for the movement and distribution of election staff and materials to various pulling units before the arrival of voters on election day.

In his remarks, Mohammed Adamu, Acting Inspector General of Police disclosed that the six Deputy Inspector Generals of Police, DIGs would be deployed to the six geopolitical zones along with other top senior officers to beef up security on the election day.

“In the tactical unit, over 24,000 mobile police personnel will be deployed, 4000 counter-terrorism personnel will be deployed and about 8000 special protection personnel will be deployed”.

“I work tirelessly with the INEC,with the office of the National Security Adviser and other security agencies to make sure that 2019 election is done in a secured manner, in a party professional manner, in  a way that a level playing field is up provided for every political party and to indicate that all the security agencies will be impartial in the conduct of the 2019 general elections.

“All the Commissioners of Police in the States were made to identify the flashpoints within their States to identify those that will cause what will lead to the disruption of elections and make sure that we bring them to order before the elections. That has been done. We have done the threat analysis in all the States Commands. The  State Commissioners of Police are also going to identify all the polling units and voting points within the Commands in cooperation with the Resident Electoral Commissioners to make sure that all the polling units are known before the day of the election.

“Apart from the regular police officers and other security agencies posted, we have our tactical units like the mobile police force, the counter-terrorism unit, our special protection units are all deployed to give additional security.”

The IGP revealed that  all the Squadron Commanders of Police Mobile Force, Special Protection and Anti Terrorism Units have been assigned the strategic  responsibility of escorting sensitive election materials to  the States Branches of Central Bank of Nigeria,  Registration Areas and equally accompany INEC Staff and poll officials especially National Youth Service (NYSC) members to their duty posts.

He further disclosed  that there would  be no Police escort for Very Important Personalities, (VIPs ) to pulling units but INEC State and Local Government offices, Collation Centres, NYSC Members Lodges and public utilities will be protected by armed Police personnel while three unarmed security personnel will man each polling unit on the day of election.

The Police Boss promised that before election day, phone numbers of all Police Public Relations Officers, AIGs, Commissioners of Police, Assistant Commissioners of Police and other officers involved in the conduct of the polls would be made available to the public.