From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
The new Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Benue State, Professor Samuel Egwu, has disclosed that out of 93.5 million registered voters across the country, an estimated 2,782,302 voters will be participating in the 2023 general elections in Benue.
Prof. Egwu, during his maiden press briefing on Wednesday, said the final figure of registered voters will be determined by the final clean-up of the register using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), which already had aided in purging the register of 2.78 million from double/multiple registrations, underage persons and outright fake registrations.
He mentioned that in Benue, the 2023 elections will hold across the 23 Local Government Areas in 276 Registration Areas and 5, 102 Polling Units.
“All the categories of elections will hold in Benue on February 24 and March 11, 2023, comprising the presidential election, election into the three senatorial and 11 Federal constituencies and the 32 state Assembly constituencies.”
Prof Egwu who noted that the youths between the ages of18 to 34 constitute 71% of the national demographics said the 2023 elections provide them with the opportunity to portray the power of democratic citizenship if positively mobilized.
He said the commission is committed to harnessing its democratic energies, for free, fair, credible and inclusive elections in Benue.
He said the Commission will work closely with all the relevant stakeholders including the security agencies, religious and traditional rules, youth groups and communities to mitigate the risks they constitute to electoral integrity.
He told newsmen that he decided to kick start his tenure with this press conference to introduce himself to the Benue public and among other reasons, to emphasize that the conduct of this Commission in the build-up to the 2023 General Election and beyond will be guided by INEC’s mission, vision and core values.
According to him, in line with INEC’s vision to be one of the best Election Management bodies in the world and to meet the aspirations of Nigerians, the commission has further developed Election Project Plan (EPP) that identifies key activities and timeliness to deliver election within integrity.
The INEC Rec who stated that collection of PVC is ongoing urged the people to go for their PVCs at INEC LG offices saying that from the old (2019) PVCs and fresh registrations, INEC has a balance of 222,893 PVCs that have not been collected
He said that as part of the ongoing preparations, the display of voter register for claims and objections will commence from Saturday, 12th to Friday 25th November 2022 while claims and objections will take place at Registration Area(RA) level from Saturday 12th to Friday 18 November and at LGA offices from 19th to Friday 25th November 2022.