Festus Okoye, the Commission’s spokesman, said in a statement released by INEC on Friday that the CVR process has been extended by two additional weeks and would now end on July 31, 2022.
Okoye urged Nigerians to register for their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) within the new two-week extension rather than waiting until the final few days.
He added that the exercise will now last eight hours everyday from 9am to 5pm rather than the existing six hours daily, and it will now also take place on weekends rather than only during the week.
The INEC spokesman stated that the commission made the decision at an Extraordinary Session which took place in Abuja on Friday.
Recall that INEC had earlier fixed June 30 as the deadline for the ongoing CVR ahead of the 2023 elections, but the commission later extended the exercise by two weeks.
Nigerians, meanwhile, have used the microblogging platform Twitter to voice their opinions on the CVR exercise’s extension.
Check out a few of the responses below.
@Nkemchor_ wrote: “INEC is in a hurry to end CVR registration for obvious reasons. Wasn’t the extension meant to be for 2 months?
“You’re even giving 2 weeks’ notice? We have complained several times about a lot of places not having enough machines and nothing has been done. Hmm!”
@PrideOfAPeacock wrote: “You are calling it “continuous” yet there is a deadline?
@Chuksunruly wrote: “I thought u extended it to August what happened?? Is the massive wave of new registration scaring the powers that be?”
@genteel_dera wrote: “INEC the problem is making available enough machines especially in the South East. The recorded low turnout preceded even the deadline of the registration because they got fed up.
“Use the remaining weeks to beef up this registration with machines & not extension of service days.”
@Eric_NiceGuy wrote: “Please explore the option of informing registrants whose cards have been produced since 2011 to come pick up via SMS and emails stating where the cards are. Your offices are full of cards not collected by the card owners.”
