As a voter identification card issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to registered voters, the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) was introduced as part of Nigeria’s “biometric voter-registration reforms,” and replaced the Temporary Voter Card (TVC) issued following voter registration beginning in 2011, ahead of the 2015 General Election, for which INEC produced PVCs for 68,833,476 persons on the biometric voter register (BVR).
For decades, dating back to 2010, and especially from 2022, I’d striven to obtain a PVC, which I registered for twice, in 2010 and 2022, respectively. In those years of trying to obtain the card, I encountered the “Nigerian factor” that’s aided the stalling of Nigeria’s overall growth and development.
On October 9, 2026, that obstacle gave way, and I received the PVC in barely five hours of shuttling between two collection points, checking for my voter particulars: name, photo, ward and polling unit in Irrua, Esan Central local government area of Edo State. Below, for context, is an account of the journey to claiming the PVC:
I was home in the Village – Idumabi Community, Irrua Kingdom of Esanland in Esan Central of Edo Central senatorial district – for 10 days in August, and from September 20 till date (November 12, 2026), for various traditional and social engagements.
My extended stay in the Village was partly to enable me collect the PVC I registered for on June 6, 2022, but wasn’t able to collect for reasons of “the card is not ready,” “the INEC officials aren’t on duty at their office that’s about two and half kilometres from my community,” “I can’t collect the card via a proxy,” “it’s not time for collection,” or “the period for collection is over.”
Like many of Nigeria’s institutions’ officials, INEC personnel are adept at manufacturing excuses to unnecessarily delay or defer to perform their statutory duty, or shirk or abandon it completely, knowing there’ll be no sanction, punishment or repercussion for such deliberate dereliction.
A day to the Friday, October 9, 2026, start of the PVCs collection nationwide, INEC officials in Esan Central drove into our community, to remind voters to go to the Uwenujie Primary School, and Eguare Primary School, Irrua, to collect their cards under Ward 6, Otoruwa II, and Ward 5, Otoruwa I and III, accordingly.
A trekkable distance of about one kilometre from my community, I set out to Uwenujie Primary School at about 9:45 am on October 9, and met a modest crowd, and two INEC officials in National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) uniforms. The PVC collectors were orderly, and the officials courteous and efficient.
As I departed Lagos to Edo before INEC announced the PVC collection, I didn’t come with the printout that’s issued to me at registration; and when the officials couldn’t find my name and photo on the master list, they advised that I go to Eguare Primary School collection point of the cards for Otoruwa I and III, about a kilometre away.
The over 100 PVC collectors at the venue in the expansive school premises were shouting, cursing shoving, and crowding the obviously exasperated INEC officials trying to answer multiple requests at the same time. It’s a chaotic atmosphere!
Unable to draw the officials’ attention, I moved to the side wall of the long block of classrooms, where names of averagely 600 registrants and their photos were displayed on the lists of voters under Polling Units (PUs) in Ward 5. I noticed that when their search turned negative, anxious PVC collectors simply left on the ground the loose sheets of detached voter lists!
I couldn’t find my name and photo on the voter lists of about 13 PUs; and as I moved further away, hoping to find other lists, I chanced on a male staff member of the school, who advised that I go back to the Uwenujie Primary School, “where all registered voters under Otoruwa II, Ward 6, were to collect their PVCs.”
I trekked the return distance to the school, and met only four persons with the INEC officials. I made a detour to the big almond (ebelebo) tree that provided shed for the INEC officials and PVC collectors. Hung on the tree trunk were several lists of voters I didn’t notice on my prior arrival at the school.
I found my name and photo on one of the lists that bore “Otoruwa II, Ward 6, Idumabi Community Square.” I approached the INEC officials, and one of the “Corpers” checked a bag of PVCs, brought out the only bunch for those who registered before 2025, didn’t find my PVC, and politely told me, “Your card is not here.”
Disappointed and frustrated, as my anxiety heightened, I asked the official, “What do I do now?” The “Corper” looked towards his colleague, and both appeared lost. Then, I said, “Please, can you look at the new PVCs, and the packet with surnames beginning with letter ‘E’?”
The “Corper” again searched through the bag, brought out the ‘E’ tagged PVCs, looked at the first card, the second card and the third card; raised his head, looked at my face, smiled broadly and showed the card to his colleague, and both said in unison, “This is your card,” as the first “Corper” handed it over to me. Time was 2:51 pm!
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Coincidentally, I didn’t cut my hair nor shave my beards, and the photo on the PVC was a “carbon copy” of me standing before the INEC officials: beards, hair and shirt as I was in 2022, prompting a knowing smile from the officials, and I, too, realising that my PVC search was over in barely five hours and six minutes: From 9:45 am, when I left home for the primary school, to 2:51 pm when I was handed the card.
To cut a long story short, I’d voted in Lagos since 1999 with a laminated temporary slip until PVC was made mandatory from the 2015 election onward, and I registered in 2010 to obtain one that I couldn’t collect on repeated visits to INEC offices.
INEC officials sent me on endless shuttles between its Ikotun and Oshodi offices in Lagos. Consider the distance between the offices in Alimosho and Oshodi local governments, the lost man-hour and transport fares wasted!
Despite the temporary voter card printout issued to me at the INEC office in Ikotun, Alimosho, I was told in 2018 that my name wasn’t on the INEC database. That’s when I concluded, enough was enough: That I won’t re-register, to avoid falling prey to double registration, and foul of the electoral laws!
A few years later, however, I resolved to register afresh in Edo State on June 6, 2022, with the intention, henceforth, of voting in the community during national elections and off-cycle Edo governorship polls.
I’d been on the trail of the PVC since then, and especially after INEC sent me a text message, with a phone number (09084444333) “for more info,” on Thursday, June 6, 2024 – exactly two years after my registration on June 6, 2022 – that “Your PVC is ready for collection.”
The INEC message, sent at 6:09pm (18:09), reads: “Dear EHICHIOYA, Your PVC is ready for collection at EGUARE PRIMARY SCHOOL, EGUARE, OTORUWO (Otoruwa) II, ESAN CENTRAL, EDO, from 9am – 5pm (Monday – Friday). For more info call: 09084444333.”
Repeated calls to that number didn’t go through. Hence, on August 23, 2024, I sent to one of my younger brothers in the Village the message, and shots of the front and back of the printout of my registration particulars, to help collect the PVC at Eguare Primary School, Irrua. He didn’t succeed!
The road to collecting the PVC in Edo was almost as rough as it’s in Lagos. Only that this time, I’ve received the card, which’ll enable me to participate, God willing, in future elections. All is well that ends well!
By Ehichioya Ezomon
- _Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Can be reached on X, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp @EhichioyaEzomon. Tel: 08033078357._
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