The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday disclosed that it has cleared 87.2 million voters to participate in the polls on Saturday.
According to data released by INEC, 93.5 million Nigerians were registered to participate in the presidential and national assembly elections as well as the governorship and state assembly polls slated for March 11.
Of the figure, 87.2 million voters collected their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) as of the February 5 deadline for the collection of the cards.
The PVC is a criterion that enables voters to exercise their franchise during elections. Already, the electoral body has said that it wouldn’t allow any Nigerian without the card to vote on February 25 and March 11 respectively.
According to INEC, the number of uncollected PVCs stands at 6,259,229 – representing 6.7 per cent of PVCs that are still uncollected. This means unclaimed owners of the cards will not vote during the elections.
Briefing reporters in Abuja on Thursday, INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu revealed that a total of 1,642,385 polling units and collation centre agents of political parties will participate in the elections.
Available data showed that Lagos has the highest figure of 6,214,970 people with collected PVCs, followed by Kano with 5,594,193. Other states are Kaduna, 4,164,473; Katsina, 3,459,945; and, Rivers, 3,285,785.
On the other hand, Ekiti has the lowest number of registered voters and also has the least number of PVCs collected – 958,052.
Based on the geopolitical zones, the North-West has a total of 21,445,000 collected PVCs, followed by the South-West region with 15,536,213. Other regions include North-Central – 14,603,621; South-South – 13,284,920; North-East – 11,937,769; and, South-East – 10,401,484.