INEC presents voters register to parties ahead of Kogi Governorship poll

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has presented register of voters to 23 political parties ahead of the Nov. 16, Kogi governorship poll.

Alhaji Mohammed Haruna, the INEC National Commissioner in charge of Kogi, Kwara and Nasarawa States, presented the register to the parties at a brief ceremony in Lokoja on Monday.

Haruna urged them to cooperate with INEC in its bid to ensure free, fair, credible, conclusive and acceptable election.

He also urged them to ensure issue-based campaigns and refrain from violence and hate speech.

The state INEC Resident Electoral Commission (REC), Prof. James Apam, reminded the parties of the need to submit list of their agents on Oct. 17.

He also advised them not to spread fake news about each other, shun violence and hate speech during the campaigns.

According to Apam, the register of voters has been optimised to guarantee credible governorship election on Nov. 16.

Nineteen out of the 23 political parties fielding candidates for the election were present at the event. The remaining three were not represented.

It was reported that the register showed that 1, 646,350 were registered as voters in the state as at Aug. 31, 2019.

However, only 1, 485, 828, voters collected their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs), while 160,522 PVCs were still uncollected.

Out of the figure, female voters are 820, 687, while voters males are 825, 663.

Further breakdown showed that the Kogi East Senatorial district has the highest number of voters with 804, 715.

Kogi West is second with 432, 515 voters, while Kogi Central is third with 409, 120 voters.

The age by age distribution of voters showed that youths of between 18 and 35 years of age constituted the bulk of voters with 893, 087 or 54.25 per cent.

The number of middle age men of between 36 and 50 years on the register is 445, 380 or 27.05 per cent.

The elderly of between 51 and 69 years are 243,629 or 14.80 per cent, while the total number of old voters of between 70 years and above is 64, 254 or 3.90 per cent.