More than 200 000 permanent voter cards have still to be collected in Kwara state, but the Independent National Electoral Commission is optimistic that with the one-week extension for PVC collecting, the figure will fall dramatically.

As at last week, over 300 000 permanent voter cards had been collected in Kwara state, while over 200 000 were yet to be collected.

INEC Public Affairs officer in Kwara, Abdulkadri Ibrahim said total PVCs that has been collected is 363 153, while PVCs not collected as at January 22nd stands at 260 9248.

According to Mr. Ibrahim, Sunday 29th January was supposed to be the last day of PVC collection with extension granted by INEC will now give more eligible voters the opportunity to collect their cards.

But unlike the situation in the past, the INEC office in Ilorin West local government area, Ipata Oloje is uncharacteristically devoid of its usual long queues as the number of PVC collectors is abysmally low.

Residents of Ilorin, the Kwara state capital are happy about the extension of PVC collection days and they want prospective voters to take advantage of it.

The Kwara state government had last week declared a public holiday for civil servants to collect their PVCs.

The new deadline for collection of PVC is now 5th of February.

In Ondo, over 386,000 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) are awaiting collection in according to INEC.

Olufunmike Segun-Osifeso, head of INEC’s Voter Education, Publicity, Gender and Civil Society Organisations said as at the last count on Friday, 1,686,082 PVCs out of the 2,072,092 PVCs received from Abuja have been collected, leaving 386,010 cards yet to be collected. A lot of youths and women have been collecting their cards since the collection moved to the ward level more than two weeks ago.

Ms Segun-Osifeso attributed the faster collection rate to INEC’s sensitisation programme involving youths and women, adding that the commission had also created an inclusivity department to make for easier collection of the cards by the physically challenged.

She urged potential voters yet to collect their PVCs to do so promptly, also noting that those who engaged in double registration might not have any cards to collect.

She stressed that the cards would be available at INEC offices at local government secretariats for distribution after Sunday.