INEC begins voter registration in Ondo

Oyetola urges residents to participate in exercise
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has begun the continuous voter registration across the 18 local councils of Ondo State to expand voter access to polling units during election.

The state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Rufus Akeju, disclosed this, at the weekend, during a press conference in Akure, saying that the state has additional 924 polling units.

Akeju, who said the exercise would kick off today, explained that Ondo State got a fair share of 924 polling units out of the new 56,563 newly-converted units across the federation.

According to him, the last delimitation 25 years ago had caused a lot of problems among voters and the electoral system, lamenting that it drastically led to low turn-out of voters.

He, however, noted that the commission did not create new ones but only converted the existing voting points to full-fledged polling units to create more access to voters.

MEANWHILE, Osun State Governor Adegboyega Oyetola, yesterday, implored the residents that have attained voting age to use opportunity of the continuous voter registration starting today to register to be eligible to vote in all future elections.

Oyetola spoke through his Special Adviser on Civic Engagement, Olatunbosun Oyintiloye, during the governor’s family meeting held at Awo, the headquarters of Egbedore Local Council.

A statement by Oyintiloye, yesterday, further said that the residents of voting age that had not registered during the previous registration of voters should also register to enable them perform their civic duty when the time to elect leaders of their choice comes.

The governor, who urged the residents to believe in Nigeria and always work for its progress, said power to entrust and give mandate to leaders through election still resides with the electorate.

“I call on all residents that are just attaining voting age or those that had not registered previously, even though they are of voting age, to use opportunity of the continuous voters’ registration starting on Monday to register. That is the only means they can get voters cards with which they will determine who governs them as required in our representative democracy.

“Power to freely give mandate to leaders as well as entrust them with political power or position through election, still resides with the electorate. We believe the people will continue to support All Progressives Congress (APC) in all future elections, especially the next governorship election in Osun and other elections.

“The tempo of development in the areas of health, education, infrastructure, security and human capacity-building, among other sectors, which we have seen in Osun under APC government, must be sustained,” he said.