The Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Olusegun Agbaje, has explained the reason behind the high number of uncollected Permanent Voter Cards in the state.
Agbaje disclosed that this was because many prospective voters might have migrated from the state for different reasons, while others might have died.
In a brief interview with Saturday PUNCH, Agbaje also noted that at least 400,000 out of the 900,000 old PVCs would be collected by previous registrants.
The REC said, “We have the old ones that are about 900,000 before, the number has even reduced now, and that is why uncollected PVCs seem to be on the high side.
I had earlier told some journalists that those PVCs cannot all be collected because many of the owners of the PVCs have relocated, we have so many institutions in Lagos, some students are no longer in the state, we also have government workers and other workers who have been transferred. Some even left Nigeria, some may have died. So many people cannot collect theirs again. However, we still have about 200, 000 to 400,000 PVCs that can still be collected during this period.”
Speaking on the current PVC collection process, he said it would improve since the process had moved from the Local Governments to the 45 Residential Areas (Wards) in the state.
“I think the collection of the PVCs has started to improve now that we have transferred the collection of the local government to the residential areas. They have been able to attend to many people. Areas like Agege, we have 11 RAs there, Ifelodun, Alimosho, we also have 11 RAs there. We have 45 RAs across the country so people who were unable to collect at the LGs can go there too.
Many of my Electoral Officers have said they are going to have more than they have been having in the LGs. They have gone today; they have more than 2,000. We will look at the outcome on the 15th of this month.”
Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission in Lagos State, on Friday, decried the poor collection of PVCs, as 1,630,744 cards were yet to be collected in the state.