Uncollected PVCs: Where Do We Go From Here?

Despite the country’s preparedness to elect its leaders in the forthcoming general elections, uncollected Permanent Voter Cards, as of February 5, 2023, stood at 6,259,229.

Though there is a traceable success in the number of collected PVCs, the whopping number of those who do not show up to get their cards is disturbing by all standards. 

According to the information available to AllNews Nigeria, a total of 87,209,007 PVCs have been collected.

The information was obtained from a document made available to journalists on Wednesday in Abuja.

The danger 

At least 6,259,229 people will not be voting in the coming election.

This means that a population bigger than some countries of the world in Nigeria would not be partaking in the electoral process, one of the most crucial in Nigeria’s political history.

According to worldpopulationreview.com, Equatorial Guinea has 1,714,671 people, Albania has 2,832,439, and Bahrain with 1,485,509 cannot make up the population of Nigerians who failed to collect their PVCs even if they are put together.

All the data was obtained in 2023. If that is the case, it suggests that a population so big that it could make up a country is turning its back on the country's voting process.

A step further is Singapore which Nigerians and its government continue to eulogise.

The country has just 6,014,723 people in 2023

In another survey carried out by our reporter in January, we gathered that one out of every seven Nigerians of voting age would still not vote despite having a PVC.

Let’s put in a bigger contest. In the last election, President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC polled 15,191,847, While Atiku Abubakar of the PDP polled 11,262,978.

With this data, we can conclude that more than half of the people who voted for the biggest opposition in the country in 2019 will not vote in 22023 because they refuse to collect their PVCs.