For many Nigerians who would rather complete a task in the 11th hour, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has extended the deadline for the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) by two weeks.
The extension was confirmed in a press statement, issued by the National Commissioner and Member, Voter Education and Publicity Committee, Mohammed Kudu Haruna on Tuesday, 14th August 2018.
The decision, according to Haruna was reached as a result of the many pleas by Nigerians for an extension of the deadline which was originally fixed for August 17 in order to have enough time to clean up the provisional register and print the Permanent Voters Card (PVC) in good time for the 2019 general elections. However, the Commission has decided to extend the CVR to 31st August 2018.
The exercise will continue every day between 9 am and 5 pm in all designated registration centres including weekends, but excluding public holidays.
The current CVR has been going on for the past 16 months, and as at the 11th August 2018, the commission had registered an additional 12, 139,061 new voters.
Collection of PVCs are still ongoing and will keep running until the end of the general elections.
In the meantime, the commission as stated in the press release has approved the registration of 23 new political parties bringing the total number of registered parties to 91.
A total of 144 applications from political associations seeking registration as political parties were submitted, but after a rigorous vetting process, only 23 associations met all the requirements and so have been registered as political parties.
See full list here.
Feature image: pulse.ng