Abuja (Sundiata Post)- According to INEC”s record, North-West geopolitical zone has the highest number of registered voters in the country with a total of 18,505,984 voters.
The South-West zone, which comprises Ekiti, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Osun and Oyo states, comes second with a total number of 14,626,800 registered voters, while the South-East which has the lowest number of states has 8,293,093 registered voters.
According to the statistics Lagos now has 6,048,156 registered voters, while Kano comes second with 5,149,070 voters.
With a total of 754,394, Bayelsa has the lowest number of registered voters, which is lower than the Federal Capital Territory with a total of 952, 815.
So far, the total number of registered voters across the country is 73,944,312.
The number of registered voters was as of January 2018.
However, INEC projects that the number of registered voters might reach 80 million before the December 2018 deadline for voter registration.
The total number of voters in the 2015 elections was 68,833,476.
Over 5,110,836 persons have registered between April 2017 when the Continuous Voter Registration began and January 31, 2018.
The number of uncollected Permanent Voter Cards remains high as less than half of the registered voters have collected their PVCs.
Lagos, according to INEC, has over 1.4 million uncollected voter cards.
Akinjide tells INEC to Delist Underage Voters
A former Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Jumoke Akinjide, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to remove the names of underage children who registered to vote in the northern part of the country.
Akinjide made the call on Thursday during the 2018 Peoples Democratic Party Youth summit, which was held in Ibadan, Oyo State.
The meeting, which had in attendance hundreds of youths from across the 351 wards of Oyo State, unanimously called on INEC to scrutinise the voter register and delete names of those who were not eligible to vote.
Akinjide, who commended the restiveness of Nigerian youths over the years, said, “When youths are involved in politics, they are on the right track to progress. Youths should make a difference. I want youths to make a success of their participation in politics. And the INEC should provide a fertile ground for democracy to thrive. INEC should take all reasonable steps for democracy to work in Nigeria. It should not only promise what is right, it must convincingly be seen as doing so.
“One of the surest ways to go about this is by disinfecting the system from its moral virus by disallowing underage voters or by stopping aliens from neighbouring countries from getting Permanent Voter Cards which, in most places, are not even accessible to eligible Nigerian voters.”
Present at the summit were a former Majority leader, House of Representatives, Mulikat Akande-Adeola; Senator Olufemi Lanlehin, a former Secretary to the Oyo State Government, Sharafadeen Abiodun Alli; and the PDP National Youth leader, Udeh Okoye, among others. (Punch).
banker of the day - FREE banker tips from experts