Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved a total number of 177,914 new registrants to vote in the forthcoming Edo and Ondo States off-cycle governorship elections.
The commission said that while it recorded number of 119,206 new voters in the September Edo State 58,708 new voters will participate in the Ondo State poll.
The Commission, in a statement signed by its National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun, however said that the figures did not include the 8,847 applications for transfer into Edo State and the 3,132 into Ondo State from other States of the federation.
The Commission further explained that the figures of the new voters and inter-State transfers will be integrated into the existing register, promising to release in the next few days the comprehensive and final register of voters to be used for the poll.
According to the commission; “Nigerians may recall that we released the preliminary figures of newly registered voters for the forthcoming Edo and Ondo State governorship elections before the period for claims and objections, followed by the cleaning up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).
“These processes have now been concluded. The number of new voters for Edo State is 119,206 and 58,708 for Ondo State. These figures do not include the 8,847 applications for transfer into Edo State and the 3,132 into Ondo State from other states of the federation.
Similarly, they do not include applications for transfer within the two states because they are already captured on the register of voters.
“The figures of the new voters and inter-State transfers are being integrated into the existing register.
In the next few days, the Commission will release the comprehensive and final register of voters to be used for the 2024 Governorship elections for each of the two states.
“The analysis of new voters for Edo and Ondo States, indicating their distribution by Local Government Areas, gender, age, occupation and disability has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for public information,” the commission said.