About a month to the 2019 polls, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that the names of all underage voters had been removed from its list to ensure that the upcoming election was free, fair, and credible.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner, INEC Kaduna, Abdullahi Kaigama, made the disclosure during an interactive session with religious leaders in Kaduna on Tuesday.
Kaigama noted that the build-up to the general election was quite tasking.
“With the support of the stakeholders, the elections will definitely be successful,” he said.
He urged that all registered voters who had not collected their Permanent Voter Cards should do so between January 16 and 21, 2019 at the designated centres in their wards.
Kaigama explained that after mandatory display of register in all polling units nationwide for claims and objections from November 6, to 12, 2018, number of registered voters stood at 84,004,084.
He said it was the same register that would be available at the polling units nationwide on election day.
According to him,
“After January 21, the collection of PVCs will be reverted to the commission’s local government offices where registered voters can collect them up till February 8, 2019.
“The commission has modified the register of voters for the 2019 general elections accordingly. Consequently, the separate incident form used in previous elections is now abolished.”
While commending INEC in its laid down plans for the upcoming elections, the CAN chairman, Kaduna chapter, Rev. John Joseph Hayab, challenged INEC to walk the talk of transparency.
“The plans are good, and that should be backed with actions. INEC should be sincere, upright and the commission should be neutral in the coming elections,” Hayab admonished.
He also called on Nigerians to have confidence in INEC and promised to use his position to support the commission for a successful outing in the 2019 elections.
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