The Kwara State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mallam Garba Attahiru, says the commission has discovered 29,000 multiple registrations of the permanent voter cards by the residents of the state.
He added that 50 per cent of those who registered for PVCs between June and December last year did multiple registrations.
Attahiru disclosed this in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, on Monday at a lecture organised by the Michael Imoudu Institute For Labour Studies (MINILS) to mark this year’s Democracy Day.
He said,
“We have 29,000 multiple registrations in Kwara State so far. Fifty per cent of those who registered for PVCs between June and December did multiple registration. The fine for multiple registration is one year’s imprisonment or N1m or both. Those affected cannot get their PVCs.”
Attahiru who warned politicians against buying PVCs, added, “You can buy PVCs, but you can’t use them. Technology has been put in place to detect multiple registrations”.
He said the 2023 elections would be the best ever conducted in Nigeria.
“This is because of technology. Collation officers cannot tamper with the election results any longer. We will transmit results electronically. In 2019, we relied on the integrity of the retuning officers and other electoral officers for a transparent election”, he added.
Earlier, the Director General of MINILS, Comrade Issa Aremu, thanked President Buhari for “courageously” redressing the historic injustice of the criminal annulment of June 12th of 1993.
The DG noted that Nigerians in the last two decades had proved that votes count.
He said INEC despite the “imperfect political environment” is improving on the electoral process to make elections increasingly credible.