The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has announced the arrest of one Okon Bassey in possession of 244 Permanent Voter Cards in Akwa Ibom State and dislodged 35 drug joints and hotspots in Kano State ahead of the elections. A cash sum of N310,000 was recovered from the suspect who was arrested in Mbo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. The Akwa Ibom command of the NDLEA also arrested 120 suspected hard drug dealers found to be in possession of 51kg of cannabis, 259gm of heroin, 17gm of cocaine, 500gm of Tramadol Diazepam and Polypro. The agency said the suspected PVC thief had been handed over to the Independent National Electoral Commission for further investigation, while others caught with hard drugs had been charged to court. Abdallah said, “Despite the challenges being faced by our officers and men in terms of manpower and logistics, they have performed creditably in clearing political thugs and drug addict’s hideout within a few days of its sting operatio...

Nigeria’s electoral body, Independent National Electoral Commission, Thursday said at least 72 million Nigerians have collected their permanent voter cards (PVCs) ahead of the 2019 elections. Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chief announced this at a press briefing in Abuja. He said the 72.7 million Nigerians who have collected their PVCs represent 86.3 percent of the over 84 million registered voters in the country. Details later

Police operatives in Abia State have arrested three officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission for allegedly being in possession of over 10,000 Permanent Voter Cards, TheCable reports. It was gathered that one of the suspects, simply identified as Stella, was arrested at a checkpoint at INEC head office in Umuahia, the state capital. Stella was said to have stuffed the PVCs in the booth of her Honda Accord saloon car with Registration No.AKD 953 FN. It was gathered that the suspect was arrested while trying to move the PVCs illegally to a location where they were to be used to rig elections in favour of some politicians in the last Saturday’s postponed presidential and National Assembly elections. The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Prof. Joseph Iroh, confirmed that the suspects were employees of INEC. He said they were on an official assignment in Ikwuano Local Government Area before they were arrested. Iroh added that the INEC office in...

The number of Permanent Voter Cards in Oyo State is 28,539 higher than the number of registered voters in the state, The PUNCH has learnt. While the aggregate of available PVCs is 2,962,646, the number of registered voters stands at 2,934,107. A record obtained by our correspondent from the Independent National Electoral Commission’s office in Ibadan, the state capital, on Thursday showed that 2,176,352 PVCs had been collected. But the commission’s Head of Publicity in the state, Mr Olayiwola Awolowo, explained the causes of the discrepancy in the figures. Awolowo explained that some of the owners of the uncollected PVCs are dead, while others had transferred their details to their new locations. He also stated that non-sensitive materials had been distributed to INEC offices across the local government areas in the state. He said sensitive materials were at the Central Bank branch in the state, adding that they would be distributed at the appropriate time. Awolowo sa...

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been commended over its plan to reprint the 319 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) destroyed in last Sunday’s fire in Abia. INEC PVCs The Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia, Dr. Alex Otti’s campaign organization made the commendation in a statement issued by the group’s Director-General, Mr Max Nduaguibe, in Umuahia on Friday. “While we laud INEC’s decision to reprint the burnt PVCs, we also urge the commission to ensure that owners of such PVCs are adequately sensitized and encouraged to come forth and collect their cards,” Nduaguibe said. He said that such a measure would help to ensure that the affected electorate exercised their franchise and contribute to the development of the nation’s democratic process. He further advised the electoral body to work closely with the security agencies to provide maximum security for its facilities across the federation. “This is to foresta...

By Ebun Sessou FORMER  Presidential aspirant of All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Charles Udeogaranya has urged Nigerians to collect their PVCs and vote out President Buhari who he said is no longer fit to continue in office. Charles Udo Udeogaranya The new decampee to Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said in a statement yesterday: “In about four years of Buhari regime, hunger has traversed the entire nation that no one is exempted apart from Buhari and some of his family members. It is my considered opinion that Buhari is using hunger alongside other tactics as weapons to subdue  Nigerians into buying his unholy agenda best known to him and this must not be allowed to continue. We must vote him out of office with the PVCs which is our power to choose the rightful leaders. “Whether you are from the Middle Belt or North Central, the unjustified killings of our dear brothers and sisters by terrorist herdsmen and the refusal of President Buhari to show acceptable ...