Underage persons, who attempt to vote during this year’s general elections and their parents are to be arrested, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned. The Commission also declared that politicians were buying Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and harvesting Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) to rig the poll would fail.

National Commissioner and Chairman of, the Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, stated this yesterday during a live program. He said the action of those purchasing PVCs would only oppress voters and prevent them from exercising their rights on Election Day.

According to him, the data of every registered voter had been domiciled in the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and not in the PVCs. The only thing the Presiding Officer (PO) will do on Election Day is to look at the last six digits of your PVC and use it to bring out your VIN to call up your data from the BVAS. Those buying PVCs and harvesting VINs can only engage in voter oppression. They can only prevent the voter from going to the polling unit on election day but in terms of carrying the PVC of someone else to give another person for voting, I can assure you that it is next to impossible.”

PRE-ORDER FOR YOURS NOW!!

Okoye disclosed that about 1.4 million ad hoc staff, made up of National Youth Service Corps members and students of tertiary institutions in their final year, would be engaged for the elections.