INEC registers 177,914 new voters in Edo, Ondo

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says 177,914 new voters have been registered in Edo and Ondo states.

In a statement on Monday, Sam Olumekun, INEC national commissioner and chairman of information and voter education committee, said 119,206 were registered in Edo, while 58,708 have been registered in Ondo.

On May 27, INEC resumed the CVR exercise ahead of the Edo and Ondo governorship elections scheduled for September 21 and November 16 respectively.

The exercise was scheduled to end on June 5 but the commission extended the closing date to June 9.

Olumekun said the number of new voters in each state do not include the 8,847 applications for transfer to Edo, and the 3,132 to Ondo, from other states of the federation.

He added that the figures do not include applications for transfer within the two states because that has been captured in the voters’ register.

“The figures of the new voters and inter-State transfers are being integrated into the existing register. In the next few days, the Commission will release the comprehensive and final register of voters to be used for the 2024 Governorship elections for each of the two States,” he said.

“Meanwhile, the analysis of new voters for Edo and Ondo States, indicating their distribution by Local Government Areas, gender, age, occupation and disability has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for public information.”

According to INEC data, in Edo state, 61,684 representing 51.75 percent of new voters are male, while 57,522 representing 48.25 percent are women.

The data shows that of the registrants, 97,723 representing 81.98 percent are youths; 15,409 representing 12.93 percent are middle aged; 5,505 representing 4.62 percent are elderly; and 569 representing 0.48 percent are old.

In Ondo state, 26,447 representing 45.05 percent are male; while 32,261 representing 54.95 percent are female.

In the age group distribution, 49,679 registrants representing 84.62 percent are youth; 6,090 representing 10.37 percent are middle-aged; 2,613 percent representing 4.45 percent are elderly; and 326 representing 0.56 are old.