The Independent National Electoral Commission has again said politicians buying Permanent Voters Cards are on wild goose chase.

Barrister Festus Okoye, National Commissioner, Information and Voter’s Education Committee made the declaration on Monday while speaking on Channels TV monitored programme, Sunrise Daily.

The INEC National Commissioner noted that those buying PVCs and harvesting of Voter Identification Numbers (VIN) could only prevent victims of their nefarious activities from exercising their franchise.

He said: “Those who are harvesting Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) of registered voters are doing that in futility.

“Why are they harvesting and buying off VINs when those VINs were published in our local government areas and in our registration areas when we displayed the voter registers for claims and objections? Those VINs are there.

“We have made it very clear that this Commission will deploy the BVAS for voters’ identification and authentication and the data of every registered voter in Nigeria per polling unit is domiciled in the BvAS and not in the PVCs.

“The only thing the Presiding Officer will do on election day is to look at the last six digits of your PVC and use it to bring out your VIN for the purpose of calling up your data from the BVAS.

“Those buying PVCs and harvesting VINs can only engage in voter oppression.

“They can only prevent the voter from going to the polling unit on election day but in terms of carrying the PVC of someone else to give another person for voting, I can assure you that it is next to impossible”.

He also disclosed that in the next general elections, parents of under-aged voters apprehended would be prosecuted for the actions of their wards. “Yes, I completely agree that there have been issues around underage registration.

“In some of the areas where we recorded underage registration, we have summoned all the officers that engaged in that particular exercise to appear before the Commission and appear before a special panel of the Commission and it is still ongoing.

“We have made it very clear that any visibly underage person should not approach any of our polling units on election day.

“If the person does appear, he or she would be arrested, alongside their parents for aiding and abetting such a venture.

“We have made it very clear that any visibly underage person should not approach any of our polling units on election day.

“If the person does appear, he or she would be arrested, alongside their parents for aiding and abetting such a venture”.

Okoye further disclosed that the Commission would keep to its promise to publish the official register of voters that will be used for the 2023 general election on January 16.

“Our voters register is robust and we believe that it is very credible. As of today, we have 93.5 registered voters in the register.

“On the 16th of January 2023, the Commission will publish the official register of voters that will be used for the 2023 general election.” (Nigerian Tribune)

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