NIGERIA’s federal government on Wednesday announced the approval of N2.117 billion for the Independent Electoral Commission to acquire 33.5 million permanent voter cards to complement the 40 million cards already produced.
Information Minister Labaran Maku made the disclosure at the end of the weekly federal executive council meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and his cabinet members, held at the State House in Abuja.
According to him, following the successful conduct of the nationwide voters registration exercise in 2011, INEC proposed to print 73.5 million permanent voter cards to replace the temporary cards it issued during the last voters registration exercise.
“Council deliberated on a number of issues today and one of which was the disclosure by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega that INEC is gradually moving towards the adoption of the expected National Identity Card which would be used as document for voting in future elections.
“According to Jega, the nation must begin to prepare towards adopting the national identity card for all future elections. This is because the idea of having a national identity card and then having separate national voter cards will simply be duplication and waste of resources.
“Toward this end, INEC has adopted a new card that will last only for about 10 years. The presumption is that the present permanent voter cards which will be issued by INEC might be used for 2015 and possibly 2019 elections.”
He said the commission had already printed 40 million voter cards in 2011 for the first phase of the project.
Maku said that INEC would commence the distribution of the 40 million cards to the electorate in June, while the additional 33.5 million cards, which would be printed at the rate of N65 per card, would be ready in the next six months.