The Independent National Electoral Commission has hailed the recent surge in Continuous Voter Registration across its registration centres in Enugu.

INEC’s resident electoral commissioner in Enugu, Chukwuemeka Chukwu, gave the commendation on Thursday.

INEC started a fresh nationwide CVR registration on August 18, 2025, and the exercise will terminate on July 10, 2026.

Mr Chukwu also recalled that previously, only a handful of fresh registrants came to the CVR centres in the state daily, adding that in the past two weeks, there had been “a clear surge”.

The INEC official, who could not provide the total number of fresh registrants for the current CVR season in Enugu, noted that most centres record at least 100 fresh registrants each day.

According to him, what is exciting about the new development is that young people aged 18 to 25 are flooding the CVR registration centres.

“The upsurge might be attributed to the normal rush at the end of every national exercise in the country. It might also be that a stakeholder/civil society organisation or a faith-based organisation is succeeding in its reorientation of youth to fully participate in the CVR and in politics. Anyway, it is a positive development and portrays more confidence in the electoral system,” he said.

Mr Chukwu noted that the CVR registration, which culminated in the collection of the Permanent Voters Card, was a vital process that gave eligible Nigerians the franchise to vote. He said that, apart from voting, the PVC granted people the opportunity to participate in the recall of elected public office holders who are not performing.

Mr Chukwu explained that more fresh CVR registrations in a polling unit could lead to the creation of an additional polling unit, more polling units in a given ward, leading to an additional ward, while more wards lead to an additional constituency.

He noted that INEC had collaborated with the National Identity Management Commission and ensured that the PVC is linked with the National Identity Number simultaneously.

Mr Chukwu said, “So, the PVC is a vital national identification document accepted for various identification purposes. The PVC is the only document that has your personal addresses. Your polling unit and ward in the community you are from are on the card, which makes it easy to trace anyone.” 

(NAN)