TheCable

As part of plans to prove its preparedness for the general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has released statistics of the distribution of permanent voter cards in all the states of the country and the federal capital territory.

Kayode Idowu, chief press secretary to Attahiru Jega, chairman of INEC, issued a statement indicating that the total number of people who have collected their PVC as at Thursday, February 26, was 54,327,747.

Below, in numbers, is how the distribution/collection of PVC has fared.

4, 112, 039: This represents the number of people in Kano who have collected PVCs. And, by the way, this is the highest by any state of the federation. A certain political party must be in jubilant mood seeing this figure, but we won’t say!

404,119: This is the total number of people in Bayelsa, President Goodluck Jonathan’s state, who now have their PVCs. Incidentally, this is the lowest PVC collection figure in any state of the federation. No need to mention the party that would have wished this figure was higher!

1,794,646: In Zamfara state, 1,794,646 of the registered 1,831,276 have obtained their PVCs. This is an impressive 90 percent collection rate; and it also makes the north-western state the highest PVC-collecting state by percentage.

808,590: If one were to play a game called words and opposite and ‘good’ were to be the opposite of ‘bad’, then ‘Zamfara’ would be the opposite of ‘Ogun’. The south-western state has the lowest number of collection by percentage, as only a miserly 808,590 out of 1,829,534  registered potential voters (representing 44.2 percent) have obtained their PVCs. In fact, as at February 17, that figure stood at 40 percent.

5,822,207: This is the number of people in Lagos who have registered to vote, making it the state with the highest number of registered voters; On the opposite end is Bayelsa, with a paltry 610,373 registered voters. But only 3,693,355 Lagosians have collected their PVCs, representing 63.44 per cent of those registered.

15,827,842: According to the latest update, northwest has the highest collection rate among the six geopolitical zones in the country. Out of a total of 18,977,731, PVCs have been collected by 15,827,842 – about 700,000 more than the previous figures.

7,665859: Southeast has the lowest number of total registered voters, with 7,665,859. It as well has the lowest number of collected PVCs: 6,030,327.

It is interesting to note that the number of PVC collection in Bayelsa state has not changed since the last figures were released 10 days ago, suggesting that not even one person collected PVC in the state in the past week.