TheCable

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says at least 72 million Nigerians collected their permanent voter cards (PVCs) ahead of the 2019 elections.

Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the commission, announced this at a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday.

He said the 72.7 million who have collected their PVCs represent 86.3 percent of the over 84 million registered voters in the country.

Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, recorded 98.69% collection rate, while Adamawa where Atiku Abubakar, his main challenger, comes from, recorded 90.66%.

In raw figure, Lagos state had 5.5 million collections, followed by Kano with 4.6 million.

The commission had said the total number of registered voters in the country stood at 84,004,084 — just 42 percent of Nigeria’s population which currently stands at 198 million.

Mahmood gave the exact number of total PVCs collected as 72,775,585, with 11.2 million cards uncollected.

The 72.7 million collection rate is 16,344,330 more than the 56,431,255 collected in 2015.

This shows an increase of 22 percent in the number of the PVCs collected compared to 2015.

Below is a table of the state-by-state breakdown of PVC collection released by INEC.