Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) may bow to pressure to extend today’s deadline for the collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) for the elections.

Although INEC has maintained that the deadline for collection of the PVCs is sacrosanct, the leading opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had, on Wednesday, appealed to the electoral commission to extend the collection date.

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, who dropped hints of an extension, at the National Stakeholders’ Forum on the general election in Abuja, yesterday, noted that the  final decision would be taken after a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners; to review the collection.

Yakubu further assured Nigerians that the elections would not be postponed as being speculated in some quarters, and insisted that INEC has already implemented most of the programmes outlined for the polls.

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“I want to assure stakeholders that INEC is prepared for the election. Let me reassure stakeholders and the nation that Smart Card Readers will be deployed for the 2019 general elections.

“The next issue is Voters’ Register and the PVCs. We have a lot of complaints from citizens, however, the complaints are coming from those who have damaged their PVCs and require replacement as well as those who applied for transfer and relocation but the cards have not been found.

‘Some of you will ask that the last day for the collection of PVCs is today. The Commission will meet, today, after this forum and the next meeting we are going to hold is with security agencies and where it is necessary we will review the arrangement for the collection of PVCs. No Nigerian is going to be disenfranchised for no fault of his or fault of hers.

Also at the meeting, acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, disclosed that the six Deputy Inspector Generals of Police would be deployed to the six geo-political zones, 24 Assistant Inspectors Generals of Police would be deployed across the zones while 36,000 tactical personnel would also be deployed; in addition to regular police ,to beef up security on election days.

Adamu said: “In the tactical unit, over 24,000 mobile police personnel would be deployed, 4,000 counter-terrorism personnel would be deployed and about 8,000 Special Protection Personnel would also be deployed.”