The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has debunked the report making the rounds that its officials were selling Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, ahead of the September 21 Governorship Election in Edo State.
While describing the allegation as false, INEC challenged a civic group, Transparency for Electoral Systems Advocacy, TESA, to provide concrete evidence against Electoral Officers to back up its claim of PVCs sale in Edo.
Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, made this statement in response to the allegation.
He said the Commission does not sell but issues PVCs free of charge to only registered voters.
According to him, the allegation followed the pattern of similar narratives leveled against the Commission by partisan groups whenever off-cycle governorship or major elections are about to be conducted.
He added that with the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS, it has become practically impossible for any voter to use another person’s PVC to vote.
Oyekanmi further stated that any uncollected PVC cannot be used by anyone to vote during the Edo State Governorship Election, stressing that any person who attempts to do so will be arrested and handed over to law enforcement agents on Election Day.
“Besides, the PVC collection process only began in 192 Wards in the State on Thursday 22nd August and will end today Monday 26th August. Thereafter, collection of PVCs will move our 18 Local Government Offices from 28th August to 8th September 2024.
“Therefore, the notion of ‘uncollected PVCs’ cannot suffice when, in fact, the collection process has just started.
“However, we encourage TESA and other individuals with concrete evidence of unethical acts against any of our Electoral Officers to promptly avail the Commission of the evidence for immediate action,” Oyekanmi added.