By David Kabiyesi
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has confirmed that only 87,209,007 Nigerians from 93.4 million registered citizens are eligible to cast their votes in Saturday’s presidential elections, iwitnesslive.com can report
According to him, INEC came to a conclusion on the number of eligible voters based on the number of collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
INEC revealed further that about 6.2 million registered voters failed to pick up their PVCs.
INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu made this revelation at the national collation center in Abuja and said not less than 13.6 million PVCs were printed to cater to those who registered anew and those who demanded transfer of PVC as well as replacement.
Lagos State led the pack for the number of PVCs collected with 6,214,970. Kano is second on the log with 5,594,193; while Kaduna followed with 4,164,473; with 3,459,945; Rivers had 3,285,785 PVCs collected while Ekiti state had the least PVCs collected with 958,052.
Other states include Oyo – 515,254, and Ogun – 410,281. Bauchi stands out with the highest registered voters of 2,749,268 and has the highest PVC with 2,721,780.
The INEC boss maintained that the Commission is leaving no stone unturned to ensure a successful election.
“We remain fully committed to a free, fair, and credible process. I want to once again declare that our allegiance is only to Nigeria. Our commitment is to ensure that in this election, we put everything in place for free choice, fair contest, and credible outcome,” he stated.
Yakubu then cleared the air on news making the rounds on social media on the existence of a preloaded Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which has been set aside to rig the elections.
“I don’t know what that implies. I’m not sure what that means. The BVAS can’t be operated before the election. It would only start working by 8:30a.m. on election day.”