“A total of 42,986 Nigerians completed their registration in the FCT. The Commission has diligently cleaned up the data using our new ABIS to weed out multiple registrations.
“Added to this figure are requests for transfer of registrations to FCT, replacement of lost or damaged PVC’s, and update of voter records, making an overall of 39,208 new PVC’s to be printed.
“I am glad to report that all the PVC’s will be available for collection from Jan. 6 till Feb. 4, 2022. The FCT office of the commission will provide full details of the locations and procedure for the collection of the PVC’s in earnest,” Yakubu said.
The chairman also disclosed that INEC had now completed the second quarter of the exercise, which commenced online in June, and physically at designated centres in July, with the commission releasing weekly updates for the last six months.
Yakubu, who said that the third quarter of the CVR would commence in January 2022, added that the commission was aware that Nigerians would like to know when the exercise would be devolved beyond INEC state and local government offices, to enable more citizens to register.
“Secondly, for those already registered, they will like to know when their PVC’s will be available for collection.
“The commission is working on these concerns and issues, and will issue a comprehensive schedule for both activities early in the new year,” he said.
Yakubu said the commission at the meeting, would review the ongoing CVR, review the recently concluded Anambra governorship election, and its preparations for forthcoming elections and other related matters.
Yakubu said that the BVAS deployed for the Nov. 6 Anambra governorship election, INEC had reviewed its performance, and pledged there would be greater improvement leading to future elections.
“The BVAS was deployed for the first time in a major election after the successful pilot in the Isoko South I state constituency in Delta, in September.
“The new technology was designed in-house by INEC engineers. Like every new technology, glitches were observed and important lessons learnt.
“The BVAS has come to stay. So, too, is the uploading of polling unit results on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in real-time on election day.
“We are convinced that the introduction of technology in voter accreditation and result management is better than the best entirely manual process.
“It also increases public confidence in the process. We will continue to deepen the use of technology in our elections,” he said.
Yakubu added that the second technological innovation introduced in the state election, which was dedicated portals, went virtually unnoticed by many Nigerians.
“For some time now, dedicated portals were created by the commission to handle different aspects of the electoral process.
“So too, is the accreditation of election observers and the media. In addition, and for the first time in the history of the commission, the accreditation of polling and collation agents nominated by political parties were done online.
“This has ensured that all such agents were provided with identification tags bearing not only their party logos, names, and other personal details, but personal photographs as well.
“This has sanitised the process and made the identification of ghost party agents easier. We will maintain the same arrangement for all forthcoming elections, including the 2023 general election,” he said.