By George Mgbeleke <\/p>\n
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has begun the distribution of 128,396 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) at the ward level across the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) ahead of the 2026 Area Council Election scheduled for Saturday, 21st February 2026.<\/p>\n
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for the FCT, Malam Aminu Kasimu Idris, disclosed this on Tuesday, 20th January 2026, during a media briefing held at the INEC FCT Conference Hall, Abuja, where he briefed journalists on PVC collection and the Commission\u2019s preparedness for the election.<\/p>\n
According to him, the PVCs available for collection include those for newly registered voters, voters who transferred their registration within or into the FCT, those who applied for replacement of lost or defaced cards, as well as PVCs from previous registration exercises yet to be collected.<\/p>\n
The REC reiterated that the PVC remains the only valid document for voter accreditation, stressing that cards would not be issued by proxy, in line with Section 47(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended).<\/p>\n
Idris disclosed that following the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise in the FCT on October 12, 2025, a total of 106,855 persons registered as new voters. He said after the deduplication exercise, 102,307 valid new voters were added to the register, bringing the total number of registered voters in the FCT to 1,680,315, compared to 1,570,307 recorded during the 2023 General Election. He added that 8,476 voters transferred into the FCT, while 775 transferred out.<\/p>\n
On preparedness for the election, the REC said INEC had made significant progress in line with its timetable, including monitoring party primaries, resolving disputes, publishing final lists of candidates, monitoring campaigns, receiving and batching non-sensitive materials, activating BVAS devices, and accrediting observers, media organisations, polling agents and ad-hoc staff.<\/p>\n
He further said the Commission had intensified voter education, published the final register of voters, strengthened collaboration with security agencies through the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security, commenced training of election security personnel, and engaged the National Union of Road Transport Workers to ensure smooth logistics on election day.<\/p>\n
Idris assured residents that INEC had factored the FCT\u2019s population size, terrain and security considerations into its operational planning and called on the media to help disseminate accurate information, counter misinformation and encourage eligible voters to collect their PVCs promptly.<\/p>\n
He reaffirmed the Commission\u2019s commitment to conducting a free, fair, inclusive and credible Area Council election in compliance with the Electoral Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has begun the distribution of 128,396 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) at the ward level across the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) ahead of the 2026 Area Council Election scheduled for Saturday, 21st February 2026. The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for the FCT, Malam Aminu Kasimu Idris, disclosed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2246,1178,810,2485],"class_list":["post-10430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-continuous","tag-exercise","tag-registration","tag-voter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10431,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430\/revisions\/10431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}