The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega Tuesday announced that 68.8 million voters have been registered for the February elections.
This is however short of about 4.8 million voters as 73.5million were registered for the 2011 elections.
The INEC boss disclosed this in Abuja during INEC formal presentation of certified National Register of Voters to political parties, done by INEC Director of Information Communication Technology (ICT), Chidi Nwafor.
“In line with provisions of the law, the Commission has just announced the publication 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,” he said.
Explaining the reason for the shortfall, Jega said it was as a result of the cleaning up of the register on the way to producing Permanent Voters Card (PVC) which would be used the election.
Addressing the press after the presentation, Jega had this to say, “Contrary to doubt being peddled by some persons, INEC will use card readers for the 2015 election.
“The Commission has already 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. Deployment of the card readers to states has commenced.
“As we have already made public, more than 38million PVCS have been collected by duly registered voters across the country. But that leaves many PVCS yet to be collected.
” To address this challenge, we have directed RECS to further decentralize distribution to the Ward level. We have also extended the time for distribution, which is now 8:30a.m to 5:30p.m, Mondays to Saturdays.
“Our staff are under instruction to strictly comply with the announced hours of distribution. “Failure by any of our staff to comply with the schedule can be promptly reported at the Local Government and State offices of the Commission, as well as the National Headquarters through the INEC Citizens Contact Centre (ICCC).”
