The Senate on Tuesday summoned the Chairman of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, Attahiru
Jega, to appear before it on Wednesday(today).
Jega is expected to brief senators on INEC’s readiness
for the forthcoming March 28 and April 11 elections.
The senate, which resumed plenary on Tuesday after a
33-day break, took the decision following a motion by
its Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba.
Ndoma-Egba, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, while
presenting the motion asked Jega to come with a card
reader for demonstration before the lawmakers.
The Minority Leader, George Akume, who contributed to
the motion, suggested that the service chiefs should
also be invited since they were blamed by INEC for the
postponement of the polls hitherto scheduled for
February 14 and 28.
But Senate President David Mark ruled that summoning
the service chiefs was not necessary at the moment.
The Senators, through voice vote, approved the
invitation of Jega, while agreeing that the invitation of
the service chiefs would be determined by Jega’s
submission on Wednesday.
INEC has however said that 75.94 per cent or
52,275,367 of the 68,833,476 registered voters in the
country have collected their Permanent Voter Cards.
As of February 4 when Jega briefed the Council of State
meeting in Abuja, 45, 098, 878 voters had collected
their PVCs.
INEC which will deploy 182,
000 card readers for use
during the general elections
released the fresh figure in
Abuja on Tuesday.
A breakdown shows that Nasarawa State is leading
other states with 96.29 per cent of the 1,196,583
registered voters having their PVCs.
Coming second is Gombe State where 95.05 per cent of
the 1,120, 023 voters had collected theirs.
Jigawa State came third with 93.20 per cent of the
1,831,276 voters receiving their PVCs as of Monday.
Jigawa and Katsina came fourth and fifth respectively.
While the percentage of the registered voters who have
collected their PVCs in Jigawa stood at 93.20 per cent
from 1,831,276 registered voters, that of Kastina was
put at 92.68 per cent.
This figure indicated that 2,620,829 of the 2,827,943
voters had collected their PVCs.
Coming from the rear is Ogun State where only 40 per
cent of the registered voters had collected their PVCs.
There are 1,829,534 registered voters in the state but
only 747,556 of them had collected their PVCs so far.
In the Federal Capital Territory, only 61.42 per cent of
the 881,472 registered voters had also picked their
PVCs.
The figure also indicated that in Lagos State which has
5,905,852 registered voters, 3,685,322 which
represents 62,40 per cent, have collected their PVCs.
The issue of PVCs was one of the reasons adduced for
the shifting of the elections by several groups, including
some political parties.
The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr.
Kayode Idowu, in an interview with one of our
correspondents, said the commission had concluded
the training of all ad hoc staff for the elections.
“We finished the training of our ad hoc staff on
Thursday,” he said, adding that INEC had taken delivery
of 182, 000 tested card readers to be used in 119
polling units across the country during the elections.
Idowu said, “All the card readers are already in the
possession of the commission. They have been tested
and found worthy. We have 182,000 card readers with
us.’’


source: http://www.punchng.com/news/jega-appears-before-senate-today-over-polls/

Let him come and address the card reader stuff cause for me I don't believe in it.
In other countries, once your name is in the voters register, you go to the pooling booth and bring out anything that can identify you like natianal ID card or international passport, you will than be accreadited and allowed to vote.
I won't want a situation where a party will allege that faulty machines was brought to them so as to dissenfrachize its supporters
What if thugs come to steal the card readers from the pooling booth, does that not mean no more voting by electorate.