THE Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has held its usual weekly meeting today and reviewed the on-going nationwide Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, exercise, which commenced on April 27.

In the first three days of the exercise, 57,737 people were registered, while 4,913 others collected their Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs. A further 1,820 individuals applied for transfer of Polling Units (PUs) and 1,117 persons applied for replacement of their lost or damaged PVCs.

The exercise, which is on-going in all the Commission’s offices in the 774 local government areas throughout the federation, has been peaceful and the turnout impressive.

The Commission is, however, aware of a few challenges, including the distance of the registration centres from some prospective registrants, especially some of our citizens residing in the rural areas and the slowness of a number of the Direct Data Capture machines, DDC.

The Commission plans to address these and other challenges as the exercise progresses.

INEC reminds the public that this is a continuous exercise meant for Nigerians who are 18 years and above and who were not previously registered and those who previously registered but whose names cannot be found in the register of voters.

It is also for those who have lost or damaged their cards and would like to replace them.

The commission appealed to all eligible Nigerians who are yet to register and those who registered but have not collected their PVCs to take advantage of this opportunity to do so.

Further updates on the exercise will be made available as we progress, Adedeji Soyebi, national commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee said in a statement made available to Realnews on Thursday, May 4.

—  May 4, 2017 @ 20:00 GMT