68 million voters registered for 2015 elections – INEC

     A total number of 68,833,476 voters registered for the February general elections.Also, over four million Nigerians were involved in multiple registrations across the country and their names have been successfully by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

     Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, stated this at the meeting the commission had with the national leadership of all the 23 registered political parties in Abuja on Tuesday evening.Jega said,“In line with the provisions of the law, the commission has just announced the publications of the register of voters that will be used for the February 2015 general elections.“The total number of voters registered for the elections is 68,833,476.”Jega said over four million Nigerians were involved in double registration and that because of this, their names had been deleted from the register.He said 38,774,391 Nigerians had collected their Permanent Voter Cards out of the 54,341,610 that were ready as of Monday last week.He, however, said the commission had ordered more PVCs and that some of them were already waiting for collection.Jega said, “The commission has taken delivery of additional PVCs from the contractor, and we are positive that we will have all outstanding cards with us by 28 January, 2015.“For the avoidance of doubt, possession of PVCs is a strict condition for anyone intending to vote in the 2015 elections.”

     Asked about the resolutions passed by the House of Representatives, asking the commission to use TVCs, he said he was not aware of such resolution. He nevertheless said the commission was working with the intent of using only PVCs for the elections.Jega regretted that many Nigerians refused to collect their PVCs, adding that in order to address this, the commission had directed all resident electoral commissioners to further decentralise the distribution of the cards to the ward level.

The time for the distribution, he added, had also been fixed from 8.30am to 5.30pm, from Monday to Saturday.He said contrary to the doubt being entertained in some quarters, the electoral umpire would use card readers for the elections.Jega added, “INEC will use card readers for the elections. The commission has taken delivery of more than 130,000 units of these card readers, and we are on schedule to receive the remaining quantity before the end of January.”He announced that deployment of the cards to states had commended.He said there were about 150,000 polling points in the country.