As part of efforts to ensure more Lagos residents obtain their Permanent Voters Card (PVC), the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has approved four work-free days for workers in the state to get their PVCs.
This is to ensure that more people collected their PVC before the July 31 deadline given by Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).
News Diet gathered that the work free days will not apply total shut-down of operations, as different grade levels were handed separate off days.
Head of Service, Mr Hakeem Muri-Okunola in a statement said the work free days begin from July 26, till Friday July 29, before the deadline given by INEC for prospective voters to get registered ends.
He directed the Accounting Officers in civil service to ensure compliance, adding that workers are expected to bring along their PVC while returning for work.
“It is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in the electoral process of her country, therefore, all public servants are encouraged to partake in the upcoming 2023 general elections.”
“Consequently, it is notified for general information that all public servants who are yet to register for or collect their PVC from designated INEC centres are advised to do so before the deadline date of 30th July 2022.”
“To this end, Mr. Governor has graciously approved a work free day for public servants to enable them process/collect their PVCs from their respective Local Governments/ Local Council Development Areas. Officers are expected to return back to work with their voter’s card after this exercise.”
“Accordingly, Accounting Officers are hereby enjoined to excuse their officers in the respective grade levels on the designated dates.”
The designated dates, according to the Head of Service are; Tuesday 26- Grade Levels concerned are 01, 03, 07 and 15.
For Wednesday, July 27, the Grade Levels affected are 02, 04, 08 and 13. Thursday, July 28, Grade Levels 05, 09, 12 and 17 while Friday, July 29, is dedicated for Grade Levels 06, 10, 14 and 16.
The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, in Lagos State, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje had earlier, disclosed that statistics showed that the state currently had about seven million registered voters.
According to him, if the number of new registrants so far in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, is added to those in the register of voters before in the state, the number will be about seven million.
In Lagos State as at Monday (July 18), those who registered online are 640, 560 but many of them have not completed registration. Those who have completed the registration exercise are 451,156.
“The total number of registered voters in Lagos state before the commencement of the ongoing CVR is 6,570,291, and if we add the new registrants, we have about seven million registered voters,” Agbaje said.
He, however, said the ongoing CVR had not ended and the commission was still capturing more people before deadline on July 31.