800,000 PVCs Uncollected in Oyo, REC Reveals

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

With about 23 days to the presidential election, over 800,000 Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) are yet to be collected in offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 33 local government areas of Oyo State.

The state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Tella Adeniran, who made the disclosure during a stakeholders’ meeting on Mock Voters Accreditation/Verification Exercise, held at the headquarters of the commission in Ibadan, said the electoral body has distributed over 400,000 PVCs.

He stated that it would conduct mock voters’ accreditation/verification exercise this Saturday in 12 of the polling units in three of the Senatorial District of the state.

The INEC boss while urging those who registered to go and get their PVCs, describing it as their power on the election day, disclosed that the mock exercise would hold from 8am to 2:30pm in all the affected local government areas/polling units.

According to him, affected polling units include Oyo Central : Polling Unit 001, Anglican Primary School, Akingbile 1, Ojoo/Moniya, Akinyele local government; Polling Unit 034, Olugbode, Akinyele local government; Polling Unit 010, St Michael Esiele, Agunlopo III, Atiba local government and Polling Unit 010, LA Primary School, Sabo, Atiba local government.

Oyo North: Polling Unit 024, Kabiyesi Street, Ekunle, Iseyin local government; Polling Unit 002, LA Demonstration School, Isalu, Iseyin local government; Polling Unit 014, Oke Anu Town Planning 1, Sabo/Tara, Ogbomoso North local government; Polling Unit 13, Blinding Center, Osupa, Ogbomoso and Polling Unit 006, Methodist Primary School, N5 (NTA) 1, N5A, Saki.

Oyo South: Polling Unit 017, Oba Akinbiyi High School II, N6B Part II, Ibadan and Polling Unit 001 and St Peters Secondary School, Apete/Awotan, Ido.

Adeniran said the exercise was crucial for the preparation of the Commission towards the forthcoming general election in the state, urging registered voters in the affected polling units to appear on the scheduled date with their PVCs.

He added that the exercise would assist to assure people in the state of the robustness of INEC’s system and further strengthen the electoral process ahead of the general elections in the state, stating that at the end of the exercise the 12 BVAS machines involved would be reconfigured before they are deployed for election proper in the state.

He said, “The essence of the mock exercise is to conduct field tests across the three Senatorial Districts in the state using 12 Polling Units at Oyo North, Oyo South and Oyo Central Districts of the state.

“The Commission has taken delivery of the BVAS machines for the elections in the state and we have also tested each machine so as to enable its functionality on election day.

“The Commission is fully ready for the election as series of trainings are being conducted for both staff and ad-hoc staff members in order to have seamless elections in the state.

“The Commission is to deploy technology for the conduct of the forthcoming elections through the use of BVAS for Accreditation/Verification of voters and uploading Polling Units results through INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) on election day.”