Minister of Information, Labaran Maku said the approval was given after consideration of memo by the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attairu Jega.
According to him, printing of the 33.5 million cards is the second phase of the project following the 40 million cards being printed by the Commission.
While the 40 million cards under the first phase of the project would be ready by June this year, he said that the production of the new approved of 33.5 million cards would be completed within six months.
Maku said that the permanent voters’ cards would only be used for about ten years after which it will be replaced by the national identity cards.
He said: “Council deliberated on a number of issues today and one of it is 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 ID card which will be used as document for voting in future elections.”
“Prof. Jega disclosed this today while answering questions on the memo for the printing of 33.5 million voters’ card. According to Jega, the nation must be prepared towards adopting the National ID card for future elections.”
“The idea of having a national identity card and a separate voters’card will simply be duplication and waste of resources. To this end, INEC has adopted a new card that will last only for about ten years. The presumption is that the present permanent voters’ card that is going to be issued by INEC might be used for 2015 and possibly 2019 general elections.
“As the nation is preparing that every Nigerian has a national identity card, INEC is preparing that at the expiration of the issued voters’ cards, the national identity card that is in process will now be the document that every Nigerian will use to vote in all elections in the country.”
“So today council considered the memo brought by INEC to print 33.5 million additional cards and we look at the proposal. These cards unlike the previous ones will have the biodata of the holder.
“Following the successful conduct of the nationwide voters registration in 2011 the commission proposed to print 73,500,000 permanent voters cards to replace the temporary voters cards issued during the voters registration exercise. There is need to print and issue the remaining 33,500,000 permanent voters card in this second phase.
“After deliberations council approved the contract for the second phase of the printing of 33,500,000 per voters cards at the rate of 65 naira per card in favour of Messrs ACT Technologies Limited in the sum of 2,117,500,000.00 only with a completion period of six months.”http://xclusivetalk.blogspot.com
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