The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said it will take two days to replace the 65,000 Permanent Voter Cards burnt during an attack on the commission’s office in Ogun State.
The INEC boss said this on Tuesday in Abeokuta, the state capital, during an on-the-spot assessment of the burnt office in Abeokuta South.
Hoodlums had on November 10 attacked the Abeokuta South Local Government Area and destroyed over 65,000 uncollected PVCs, among others.
Yakubu, while speaking with newsmen after assessing the extent of damage, described the arsonists as “undemocratic and retrogressive elements.”
He said, “Whatever materials we have lost, the commission is making efforts to replace them. We lost 65,699 PVCs; we want to assure all those that have not collected their PVCs who may have been affected that we are making plans to reprint the PVCs quickly and to bring them back to Abeokuta South for people to collect and vote.
“We want to assure the people of Abeokuta South that this incident, terrible as it is, will not deter and will not discourage us, will not discourage our staff from conducting the 2023 general elections and we want to once again assure the people of Abeokuta South, the people of Ogun State and the people of Nigeria that the commission is determined to make the 2023 elections our best ever; we will not be deterred, we cowed by act of arson by undemocratic and retrogressive elements.
“As soon as we get the VIN numbers to be harvested by the state office, we will reprint; it doesn’t take longer than two days to print 65,000 PVCs, but we have to get the Voter Identification Numbers for the cards that were lost so that we can quickly reprint.”
