The Lagos Resident Electoral Commissioner, Sam Olumekun has said that over 1.4 million Permanent Voters Card (PVC) remained unclaimed in the state.
Olumekun who made this disclosure yesterday at the end of an Inter-Agency Consultative forum on election chaired by the Commissioner of Police Imohimi Edgal said that the commission recorded a total number of 6,609,115 registered voters between April 2017 and August 2018.
According to him, the number of unclaimed PVCs in Lagos alone was alarming and that the commission would do everything within its power to encourage owners to come forward and pick them.
He said: “ Today, the interagency consultative forum on election security in Lagos State has met and has devised new strategies of tackling new issues that will arise during the conduct of the election.
The meeting has been very productive and we want to tackle current issues that are on the ground in the conduct of elections. Let me first assure you that INEC is on the ground fully and determined more than ever before conduct the election in February 2019 that will be better than whatever we have done before.
“We are going to improve on our strategies. This is why we are here to meet with security chiefs in the state under the umbrella of the inter-agency consultative forum.
In the past few months, some activities have taken place including the continuous voter’s registration exercise which we undertook from April 2017 to August 2018. Lagos State recorded additional 786, 839 new registrants. This figure has been collated and it is the authentic figure.
Presently, this brings us to a total number of registered voters as 6,609, 115 million registered voters. The meeting considered the issue of uncollected permanent voters cards.
This is a big issue for us and we have brainstormed about it and very soon we will be conducting expanded stakeholders meeting where we will take minutes from stakeholders so as to arrive at policies that will help us at the collection of PVCs.
“The point is that we are not distributing PVCs, the owners of these PVCs have to collect them. We implore all concerned stakeholders to collect their PVCs at the local government’s offices for their own use. We are looking at possibilities of going to the lower level and possibly go to the registration areas at all level to distribute these cards.”
CP Edgal said, “ We considered issues as it relates to the activities before during and after the election to ensure that the 2019 election is safe, free and very peaceful. We have resolved to update the list of flashpoints and hot spots in Lagos.
This will involve the local government chairmen and other stakeholders. We intend to carry out overt and covert activities both on land and on water which will also include ariel surveillance with RRS surveillance choppers to ensure that we keep the state safe and free of hoodlums before the election.
“We intend to continue briefing the press regularly ensure we have free 2019 election. This will also include joint security operation with other agencies, particularly the immigration at this stage to ensure we identify foreigners who are not supposed to be in possession of PVCs.
“Generally, we will also ensure that all unoccupied and unpoliced areas in the state are taken over by security agencies ahead of the election. Let me assure Lagosians that the 2019 election will be very peaceful, we will not hesitate to deal with anybody.
All stakeholders, chieftains must talk to their child, wards to stay off thuggery because anyone who wants to tamper with security during this period will have the security agencies to contend with”
