Mallam Garba Attahiru, the Kwara State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), says that the commission has found that 29,000 permanent voter cards have been registered more than once by people living in the state.
He also said that half of the people who signed up for PVCs between June and December of last year did so more than once.
Attahiru said this on Monday in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, at a Democracy Day event put on by the Michael Imoudu Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS).
He said,
“So far, 29,000 people in Kwara State have signed up more than once. Half of the people who signed up for PVCs between June and December did so more than once. If you register more than once, you will go to jail for a year or pay a fine of N1 million, or both. Those who need PVCs can’t get them.”
Attahiru told politicians not to buy PVCs, but he also said, “You can buy PVCs, but you can’t use them. Technology has been put in place to catch people who sign up more than once.”
He said that the elections in Nigeria in 2023 would be the best ones ever held there.
“Technology is to blame for this. Collation officers can no longer change the results of an election. We will send the information electronically. In 2019, we relied on the honesty of the poll workers and other election workers to make sure the election was fair,” he said.
Comrade Issa Aremu, who is the Director General of MINILS, thanked President Buhari earlier for “courageously” fixing the wrong done by the criminal annulment of June 12, 1993.
The DG said that Nigerians had shown in the last 20 years that votes matter.
He said that even though the political situation isn’t perfect, INEC is improving the voting process to make elections more trustworthy.
