The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has insisted that the Continuous Voters, CVR, exercise will not be extended as it is set to stop on July 31, 2022 (today).
The clarification follows the huge crowd that trooped to registration centres to register before the deadline.
Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner in charge of publicity and voter education, disclosed this during an interaction with the press at the Anambra State INEC headquarters.
He noted that the suspension of the exercise will give the commission time to put other things in place.
Okoye said, “You are fully aware that 30th of June, 2022 was the terminal date for the CVR, but the commission extended the date to 31st July, 2023, a period of one month.
“The CVR cannot go on ad infinitum. It has to be terminated at a certain point in time and so, the commission has decided to terminate it tomorrow (today), the 31st of July.
“This is to enable us have the time to clean up the double and multiple registrations. We have to do this before the 2023 elections so as to have a clean voters register.
“The Electoral Act 2022 mandates INEC to display the voters register in the 744 local government areas of the country and in the 8809 registration areas for claims and objections. Thereafter, we have to print the voters cards of all the registrants and get them to come and collect their PVCs.
“The voters registration is not the only function the commission performs. It is also involved in the procurement of items in readiness for the 2023 elections.
See Also: 2023 Election: INEC To Provide 200,000 BVAS – Okoye
“If the commission continues with the CVR, it will do a lot of damage to our other activities and we cannot afford to do that.”
Responding to speculation of politicians buying PVCs from registered voters, Okoye said it was not within the control of the electoral umpire.
He added, “We don’t have security personnel that will be going round to find out who has sold his PVC or who has not. Our duty is to organize and supervise elections.
“Even if anybody bought PVCs, they will be useless on election day because the data of each registered voter in Nigeria is not stored in the PVC, but is resident in the BVAS.
“So, if you come to the voting unit on election day with a voters card that does not belong to you, the name of the owner will appear. Also, your fingerprint will not match and the BVAS will reject you, which shows that the person is involved in identity theft.”
Source: Vanguard