The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has registered new 113, 255 voters in Kogi State through the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR).
The state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor James Apam who stated this at a news briefing in Lokoja on Wednesday said the new voters comprised of 50,854 males and 62,401 females.
He said that the new voters were registered between June last year and March 2, 2022.
As at 2019, the state was having 1,646,350 but with the new 113, 255 voters, the state now has 1, 759, 605 voters.
According to Apam, the commission has also carried out what he called expansion of voter access exercise under which previous voting points were converted to full fledged polling units and removed them to places that were underserved .
With the successful completion of the exercise, he said Kogi State which hitherto had 2,548 polling units now has 3,508 polling units.
” Our registration officers have been given a list of both the old and new units and instructed to make these available to the voters who may want to transfer or register afresh.
To thus end, he said teams had been dispatched to all registration areas in the state to register new voters and to enable those already registered to transfer their voting points and update their personal information.
According to Apam, the display of voters register for claim and objection will hold from March 26 and end on April 1.
“We hope that the entire exercise will come to an end on June 30, 2022,” he said.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner explained clearly that the INEC had nothing to do with what is going on in some internet cafes in the state.
” We do not collect money for registration. Our involvement with voters only begins when they approach us with their printed slips at our registration centres ,” he stated.
In his closing remark, the Administrative Secretary, Mr Abubakar Sadiq commended the stakeholders for their presence, assuring that the commission will continue to collaborate and cooperate with the stakeholders for peaceful, free and fair elections in 2023.
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