{"id":58543,"date":"2024-12-27T12:20:40","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T12:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=58543"},"modified":"2024-12-27T12:20:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T12:20:40","slug":"inec-proposes-destroying-uncollected-pvcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2024\/12\/27\/inec-proposes-destroying-uncollected-pvcs\/","title":{"rendered":"INEC Proposes Destroying Uncollected PVCs\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Gabriella Ogbu<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is considering withdrawing and destroying Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), that remain unclaimed for a decade.<\/p>\n<p>This proposal emerged from a post-2023 general election review, which generated 208 recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>As of 2023, over six million PVCs remain uncollected, some dating back to 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Stakeholders have urged INEC to address the backlog, arguing that these cards likely won\u2019t be claimed and contribute to inefficiencies in voter management.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Challenges in PVC Collection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Despite extending the PVC collection deadline and decentralizing the process to the ward level, INEC reported significant collection challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Efforts like online tracking and collaboration with civil society organizations yielded limited success, leaving millions of cards unclaimed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Modernization Efforts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>INEC has also proposed modernizing the voting process by gradually phasing out physical PVCs.<\/p>\n<p>With the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), enabling biometric voter verification, voters could use digital credentials instead.<\/p>\n<p>However, implementing this shift requires amending Section 47(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, which mandates PVC presentation for accreditation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reactions to the Proposal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Political parties are divided over the idea.<\/p>\n<p>The Labour Party supports the plan, citing voter register decluttering, while the PDP criticizes it as a diversion from INEC\u2019s credibility issues.<\/p>\n<p>The NNPP opposes the destruction, calling it wasteful and suggesting secure storage instead.<\/p>\n<p>Some Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), back INEC\u2019s proposal, arguing that many uncollected PVCs likely stem from double registrations or belong to deceased individuals.<\/p>\n<p>However, others urge caution, citing the resources invested in producing the cards and calling for public awareness before any decision is made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Gabriella Ogbu The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is considering withdrawing and destroying Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), that remain unclaimed for a decade. This proposal emerged from a post-2023 general election review, which generated 208 recommendations. As of 2023, over six million PVCs remain uncollected, some dating back to 2015. Stakeholders have urged INEC [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":58544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inec","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58545,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58543\/revisions\/58545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}