One-week holiday needed for PVC collection, says LP chief

• Published date: 09 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

Labour Party (LP) National Vice Chairman (Southeast), Chief Sunday Innocent Okeke, has urged the Federal Government to declare a one-week public holiday to enable students to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs).

Okeke said not declaring the public holidays would disenfranchise many of the youths, who were registered as prospective voters during the eight-month strike by the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

According to him, with INEC insisting on the January 22, 2023 deadline for the collection of the PVC, it would be difficult for most eligible voters to collect their PVCs now the students were back to school and many far from their homes and therefore were busy and engaged to meet with their academic losses from the long strike.

Okeke said in a statement: 'One would recall that the unholy eight months of the face-off between the Federal Government and ASUU which saw our youths staying at home, was when voter's registration was going on, and the youths who were home leverage that opportunity to register at various registration centres…

'The question, therefore, is, what happens to the students that registered and are now in school and this constitutes the larger chunk of...