CITIZENS COMPASS–The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has disclosed that 2,629,05 registered voters would participate in the September 21, election.
The Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner(REC) of INEC, Dr. Anugbum Onuoha, recently disclosed this at the State INEC office in Benin City while presenting the Certified True Copy of the updated Voters Register to political parties for the election to the seventeen political parties participating in the exercise.
He said the Commission decided to issue the voter register to the political parties for the election in line with the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act, 2022 as amended
The Commission said before the recent Continuous Voter’s Registration (CVR) in the state, the total number of registered voters during the 2023 general election in Edo state was 2,501,081.
Going by the breakdown of the figures, he said,a total number of 1,370,061 (52.11%) male voters make up the list while the females make up of 1,258,964 (47.89%) of the voters list.
In terms of distribution of voters by age, Onuoha said the youths between 18 and above dominated the voters with 983,133 of them (37.4%) followed by the middle-aged of 6 to 49 which are 914,806 (34.80%) than the elderly between 50 to 69 years who he said are 530,244 voters (20.17%) and then the elderly of 70 years and above who are 200,842 voters (7.64%).
Onuoha disclosed that while 8, 847 people transferred their voting centres from other states to Edo State, 109 voters transferred their voting centres out of Edo State.
According to him “In line with Section 10(4) of the Electoral Act, 2022 as amended, today, we shall be giving you (political parties representatives), the Official Register of Voters in Edo State and this is the 10th item in the timetable and schedule of activities for Edo State”, he said.
“Recently, we did continuous voter registration and the cards have been printed and given to us. In Edo, we have a total of 119, 206 new registered voters
“In addition we have 8,847 transferred from their registration centres within the state as the law provides. The commission has updated the records of 4, 808 voters that applied for correction of names, addresses, and date of birth from their previous registrations.
“We also replaced the 5,406 lost, damaged PVCs. Put together, 184, 436 voters of various categories were served by the commission during the last CVR in Edo State”, he said
According to the Edo INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ikpoba-Okha has the highest number of registered voters with 400,495, closely followed by Oredo Local Government Area with 357,371 Voters while Igueben Local Government Area has the least registered voters with 52,000.
On her part, the INEC National Commissioner in charge of Edo, Delta and Ondo States, Prof. Rhoda Gamus, said that the commission is committed to conducting free, fair and credible elections in Edo and urged the politicians to abide by the electoral guidelines for the election, noting that the exercise should not be seen as a do-or-die affair.
She said: “The commission is committed to keeping strictly to the date and details in the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2024 governorship election in Edo State.”
She revealed that the commission will be conducting a mock accreditation ahead of the election, adding that the date and modalities would be communicated to the people.
