Anambra poll: INEC boss warns on double/multiple registrations

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has warned voters against multiple registrations for the permanent voter cards (PVCs) ahead of the November 6 Anambra state governorship election.

He gave the warning at an emergency meeting of political parties and the INEC, held at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Friday.

He also disclosed that a total of 138,802 citizens completed their registrations, including applications for transfer and requests for replacement of lost, damaged or defaced PVCs as required by law.

“The number of valid registrants in Anambra state at the beginning of the first quarter of the continuous voter registration (CVR) was 77,475 and this figure was added to the existing number of 2,447,996 eligible voters used for the 2019 General Elections. The total number of registered voters in Anambra state now stands at 2, 525, 471,” he said.

Prof. Yakubu added, “We have almost completed the recruitment of Ad hoc staff among the about 26,000 election duty staff required for the November 6 governorship election in the state, though there are still some minor shortfalls.

“The training of electoral officers (EOs) and assistant electoral officers (AEOs) have been completed while the training of supervisory presiding officers (SPOs) will commence soon.”
He expressed confidence in the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) which achieved 97.4% success in the just-concluded Isoko South 1 state constituency bye-election in Delta state as against the 32.8% success recorded in 2019.

He appealed to all political parties and candidates not to exacerbate the feeling of insecurity in Anambra through unguarded utterances and actions as “doing so could compound the security situation and make the work harder for the Commission, themselves and the security agencies.”

According to him, the moment calls for statesmanship and maturity which is the reason for the emergency meeting.