Isaac Fayose, a Nigerian businessman, has claimed that Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were distributed to non-indigenes of Ekiti State while voting was ongoing in the 2026 off-cycle election.
Fayose made the claim in a video posted on his verified social media handles, which was further amplified by online bloggers, as can be seen here and here.
In the video, Fayose reacted to another clip, which he claimed showed the distribution of PVCs to individuals who are not from the state, allegedly to influence the voting process in favour of the governorship candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Governor Biodun Oyebanji, popularly known as BAO, who is seeking re-election.
According to Isaac Fayose, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had retrieved uncollected PVCs and handed them over to the APC, which was then allegedly sharing them to non-indigenes of the state for use during the June 20 gubernatorial election.
“No party can win election in Nigeria. No election can change this government. Look at what they’ve done in Ekiti. They said people that didn’t collect their voters cards are only 30,000. They are more than that. They are over four hundred thousand (400,000). They gave the cards to APC the same way Lere, Wike’s aide, entered INEC’s server and brought out Ike’s details.
“They’ve entered Ekiti, collected all the voter cards that were abandoned. They got non-indigenes from the state and gave them N20,000 to be using the cards to vote,” Isaac Fayose said.
In his caption to the video, which he shared across Instagram and Facebook—garnering a combined over 23,000 likes and more than 5,000 shares at the time of retrieval—he wrote, “Shame on INEC. Nigeria electoral system is a failure”
CLAIM: Video shows APC distributing uncollected PVCs to non-indigenes during the 2026 Ekiti gubernatorial election.
VERIFICATION
In an attempt to verify the claim, a critical assessment of the video was conducted. Findings show that while inscriptions such as “De-Law 4 BAO”, “BAO”, and the APC logo were visible on the caps of some individuals in the video, the items being distributed were clearly not Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
The items appear more like complementary cards or vouchers and do not resemble official PVCs in appearance or format.
Additionally, no credible media outlet reported such an incident during the voting period.
The Commissioner of Police in charge of elections, Abayomi Shogunle, while speaking live on Channels Television, also debunked the claim, stating that nothing of such occurred during the voting exercise.
According to him, PVCs are not as flexible as what was shown in the viral video.
“When you listen clearly to the conversation underneath, it has nothing to do with voting. We need to verify everything that everybody is pushing out. Some people are pushing out some of these things because they want to make money from the social media companies,” Shogunle stated.
VERDICT: FALSE
The CDD War Room confirms that the viral video does not show the distribution of PVCs during the 2026 Ekiti off-cycle election, as claimed by Isaac Fayose and circulated by online bloggers, including Lindaikejiblog and GossipMillNaija. The Nigerian police have also debunked the allegation.
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