The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Lagos state, Olusegun Agbaje, said if the number of new registrants in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) is added to those in the register of voters before in the state, the number will be about seven million.

“In Lagos state as of Monday (July 18), those who registered online are 640, 560, but many of them have not completed registration. Those who have completed the registration exercise are 451,156.

“The total number of registered voters in Lagos state before the commencement of the ongoing CVR is 6,570,291, and if we add the new registrants, we have about seven million registered voters,” Mr Agbaje said.

He, however, said the ongoing CVR had not ended, and the commission was still capturing more people before the deadline on July 31.

The INEC boss said there would not be an extension of the CVR because the commission had lots of work to do on the voters’ register before printing of the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).

He assured that though the commission could not capture everybody, those who presented themselves for registration would not be denied.

“Whoever comes out on these weekends, especially those who complained that their work does not allow them, will be registered,” Mr Agbaje said.

He said the commission had to stop the CVR on July 31 to clean up the voter register, which he described as vital to the credibility of elections.

“We have to take the data to our workshop, analyse what we have, then to another workshop for the printing of cards, transporting them to all the states before we ask people to come and collect them.

“So, the processes are quite long, and the time is not there, we have to stop the CVR,” he added.

Urging people to avoid double registration, Mr Agbaje said those engaged in dual or multiple registration would not get PVCs.

He stated that all the PVCs for the new registrants from January to July 31 would be ready by October, and from October to  December, INEC will start distribution.

He said out of about 34,000 new PVCs printed for people that registered from June to  December 2021 in Lagos, only about 10,000 had been collected across the 20 local government areas of the state.

Mr Agbaje urged people to visit INEC offices in each of the 20 LGAs to collect their PVC.

(NAN)