INEC Worry Over low participation of Edo Residents in ongoing voters registration

By: Idris Umar Momoh

The Edo State office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday expressed worry over the low turnout of residents participation in the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration in the state.

Dr Johnson Alalibo Senikiem, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Edo State made the remarks at a recent stakeholders' meeting on the Continuous Voter Registration rotation organised by the commission in Benin City.

Alalibo, however, said a total number of 103,101 new voters have registered  since the commencement of  the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) in 2021.

The resident electoral commissioner, urged actors to mobilise their people to turn out en-masse and participate in the ongoing registration in the state.

He added that new voters had completed their registration out of the 267,460 that registered online.

He also said that in 2021, the commission approved the conversion of 1,892 voting points to substantive polling units, thereby increasing the number of polling units across the state from 2, 627 to 4,519.

Alalibo, warned against double registration, adding that, anyone that engages in the act risks total loss of his or her registration.

While calling on the security agencies in the state to provide security for INEC staff during the national assignment, urged political parties to work harmoniously together towards the success of the registration exercise.

He said as part of efforts to encourage participation of Nigerians in the electoral process and improve easy access of registrants, he said the commission took the registration exercise nearer to the people so that registration will now take place at the ward level.

"Intending registrants should,therefore, take advantage of this opportunity by visiting their wards to get registered. But due to limited number of INEC Voter Enrolment Device (IVED) available, the exercise will be rotational while more are being expected by before the next quarter",he said.

Dailymonitorngr.com reports that a total of 2,210,534 million residents registered to vote in the September 19, 2020 governorship election in Edo State, out which 1,726,738 were eligible to vote having collected their Permanent Voters' Cards (PVCs) while 483,796 voters could not vote as a result of failure to collect their PVCs.

Dailymonitorngr.com, also reports that an INEC document titled “Delimitation of Edo State”,shows that as at August 2018 a total of
1,159,325 million male voters, representing 52 percent registered  while a total of 1,051,209 million female voters representing  48 percent also registered.

The INEC document further breakdown the total registered voters to include youths between the age of  18 – 35 years to 1,105,338 million representing 50 percent of the total registered voters in the state.

"Middle Aged voters between 36 and 50 years are 643,551 representing  29.1 percent while elderly between 51 – 70 years are
353,508, representing 15.99 percent. Eligible voters classified as the Old (70 years and above) account for 108,137 representing 4.89 percent.

"Further distribution of registered voters in the three senatorial districts of the state shows that Edo South has the highest figure of registered voters of 1,281,414 million, Edo North has 564,122 voters and Edo Central senatorial district has 364,998 voters", the document stated.