POLITICS INEC registers 346,477 new voters in Ebonyi

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it registered 346,477 new voters in Ebonyi in the 2017/2018 voter registration.

Prof. Godswill Obioma, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Ebonyi, gave the figure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abakaliki.

Obioma said that the figure had brought the number of eligible voters in the state to 1,464,247.

“We have concluded the continuous voter registration successfully and recorded an additional 346,477 number of registered voters in the state.

“This number brings to 1,464,247 expected voters in Ebonyi; these include registered voters from the previous exercises,” Obioma said.

He told NAN that the commission developed strategies to ensure credible, free, fair, transparent and hitch-free elections.

“We have developed a number of strategies that will improve the electoral process in Ebonyi, and forwarded these to the commission’s headquarters.

“We have developed transport strategy plan in partnership with the National Union of Road Transport Workers for enhanced transportation of men and materials during elections.

“Security strategy plan of the commission was a product of the Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security designed to improve security during elections.

“Ad-hoc staff deployment strategy framework, in partnership with the National Youth Service Corps, has also been developed.

“The commission has also developed a strategy partnership arrangement with civil society organisations for effective voter education and mobilisation,” he said.

The REC urged eligible voters yet to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to do so.

He said that PVCs would be directly collected by their legitimate owners and not by proxy.

“Our electoral officers have held stakeholders’ meeting to sensitise people at the grassroots about PVC collection.

“We have already embarked on aggressive PVC collection sensitisation in the13 local government areas of the state,” the REC said.

He gave the assurance that the 2019 General Elections in Ebonyi would be seamless.

According to the REC, votes must count in the elections.

He called on political parties, candidates, party supporters and other stakeholders to eschew acts capable of compromising the outcomes of the polls. (NAN)