The Independent National Electoral Commission said it has distributed 1,586,448 permanent voter cards in Bauchi State during the just-concluded distribution exercise.
This figure represents 84 per cent of 1,877,124 cards meant for the state.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Samuel Usman, said this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Bauchi on Friday.
Usman attributed the success of the exercise to the massive awareness campaign carried out by INEC, the media and all major stakeholders in the state.
He said: “Our collaboration with stakeholders in educating and mobilizing the electorate to come out and collect their cards yielded fruits, resulting in massive turn out of people.
“So far, 84 per cent of the total cards received from INEC headquarters in Abuja for distribution in Bauchi State were successfully distributed within the stipulated period of August 15 to August 17.”
The commissioner said that only 290,676 cards were yet to be distributed, adding that the remaining cards would be taken to various INEC offices in the 20 Local Government Areas of the state for collection by owners.
He, however, said that the distribution would commence after the completion of the continuous voter registration, which ends on August 25.
He therefore advised those who could not collect their cards within the stipulated period to go to the INEC offices in their respective local government areas where they registered and collect their cards.
Usman equally commended the people of Bauchi State for coming out en mass again to register in the ongoing continuous voter registration.
He acknowledged that some technical hitches were experienced with the Direct Data Capturing machines.
He, however, said some technicians had arrived from Abuja and were currently trying to address the problem.
He therefore appealed to the people to exercise patience, stressing that the exercise would last for six days in all the 212 registration centres across the state, as well as the 109 zero centres where fresh registration would be conducted.