The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced plans to accommodate persons in affected Nigerian states who are not yet in the biometric electoral register.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced plans to accommodate persons in affected Nigerian states who are not yet in the biometric electoral register.
Such Nigerians will be taken care of during the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) which commences tomorrow, November 12 in the follow seven states: Kano, Edo, Plateau, Ogun, Imo, Lagos and Adamawa.
A statement by Kayode Robert Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega said that such people, once they establish that they are in the Register of Voters, do not need to present themselves at CVR even if they have not obtained their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
The commission offered two ways to check the Register of Voters:
Send an SMS to the dedicated phone number 08171646879 with the following information: Name of state, surname, the last five or six digits of the VIN (i.e., Voter Identification Number) on their Temporary Voter Card (for example: Lagos, Salama, 06782: [ensuring the comma in-between];
Send an sms to INEC at 20120, such as: [INEC, Lagos, Salama, 06782).
Idowu explained that such an enquiry will receive an instant response providing the person’s full profile on the Register and the polling unit number if the person is actually on the Register; or advice to the contrary if the person is not.
“If a person is on the Register and has not been able to obtain his / her PVC, he/she should go to the relevant local government office of INEC where distribution of the cards will continue daily till the end of January 2015,” he said, stressing that only those who the SMS service shows are not on the Register need to present themselves for CVR, in addition to persons who are registering for the first time ever.
He expressed the optimism that if only those who genuinely need to register present themselves for the CVR, the exercise will be efficient and far-reaching.
The SMS checking facility is also available to people throughout the federation who simply want to check the Register of Voters.