INEC Registers 2.5 million Voters In Ogun
By Olu Osikoya
The Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ogun state, Prof. Abdulganiyu Raji, yesterday disclosed that, no fewer than 2,449,000 residents of the state have been registered so far in the ongoing Continuous Voters’ Registration (CVR).
Raji disclosed this at a a sensitisation meeting between INEC and the representatives of Students’ Union Government (SUG) in the state on Continuous Voters Registration organised by the office of the Special Assistant to the State Governor on Student matters, Azeez Adeyemi.
Students were drawn from all the tertiary institutions in the state for the programme, held at Cultural Centre ,Kuto, Abeokuta.
The REC while delivering his lecture on INEC CVR and students Civic rights, said, INEC would partner the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to ensure that all students within the voting age are captured in the ongoing registration exercise.
Raji disclosed that statistics with the commission shown that 85 per cent of new registrants of the Permanent Voter Cards are youths.
According to him, in the first week of registration 259,713 people registered, out of which 70 pet cent were youths.
He declared that since the youths constitute 95 per cent of the population in the country and 70 per cent registrants in the first week are youths then, the country is moving towards a positive direction.
He added that the trend has improved as of Monday as 2,449,648 persons have registered out of which 1,592,178 are youths who are in the age range of 18-34 years.
He said, if he added those within the age range of 35-49 years the number rose to 2,122,000 thousand youths which makes about 85 percent of the total registration.
He said “In line with the demography that I read to you earlier, out of this 259,713, 175,859 were youths constituting over 70 per cent of those who registered.
“With this, I think we are moving in a positive direction because if you constitute 95 per cent of the population, and about 70 per cent have registered within the first week are youths and that trend has actually continued until now.
“The last figure that we recorded which was as at this Monday, we had recorded 2,449,648 free registration, out of which 1,592,178 were youths. This youth between the age of 18 and 34 years , if I add youths between the age of 35 and 49 years to that, out of 2,449,000 registrants , 2,122,000 youths have registered between the age of 18 and 49, that is over 85 per cent of those who are registrants .
“Nigeria is moving in a positive direction, you can go to our website, any of the two, you will see the information”.
“My message to you, youths is that if you want a brighter future, our permanent voters card is our power, we must register, if you do not register, you can not pick the person that will lead you.
“If you allow some other people to pick your leaders for you, you will have no reason to criticize anybody, whichever way they have done it and if we have 95 per cent of Nigerians being youths and then youths who want to secure their own future can not use their hands to determine their own destiny, I think then the problem lies with us, part of some of these problems is that we must avoid hate speeches and hate news”.
Earlier, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Students matters, Azeez Adeyemi appealed to the students to take the issue of vote registration seriously.
Adeyemi urged the INEC to create an enabling environment for the students who are eligible to vote.
He commended the state governor for his support to the programme and students matters.
