By Oludamisi Ojo
Residents of Osun State still have the opportunity till the end of March for registration of Permanent Voter Card (PVC) to enable them to participate in the July 16 Governorship Election in the State.
The State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Prof Abdul Ganiyy Raji spoke at a voter education program organized by the Joint Muslim Action Forum, JOMAF, in Osogbo.
He said the end of March marks the end of the 3rd Quarter for the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC’s registration of PVC, adding that though the 4th Quarter would begin shortly after, the exercise would be discontinued in Osun owing to the forthcoming governorship election in the State.
He urged people of the state who are yet to register to do so in order not to disenfranchise themselves as it was important for all to participate in choosing who become their leaders.
Prof Raji disclosed that about 300,000 PVCs were yet to be collected from the various offices of the commission across the State.
According to him, the situation is not good for democracy as it means that the majority of people would not participate in the process of choosing who governs them.
The REC used the opportunity to encourage those who want to update and or correct the data in their PVC to visit the commission’s website, saying the process has been made easy.
On the newly created additional polling units across the State, Prof. Raji said the purpose is to ease the voting exercises, counting, and collation processes on the day of the election.
He said it is important for those who want to transfer to the new voting units to take advantage as it would help them to be closer to their polling unit and also reduce queue as well as save their time on election day.
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The INEC chief said they have created new polling units, stressing that” we used to have 3010 polling units, now we have created 753 making 3763 polling units in Osun State”
However, he said the new polling units that were created, did not have too many people transferring their registration.
He said” We want people to move their voting right to those new polling units which are now closer to their residences. It has several advantages. Once we will have very few people on the line, the queue will be short, so we can complete the election within a very short period and at the end of the day, we will now be able to count and collate during the daylight.
The chairman, JOMAF, Kola Uzamot said the program was organized to train the trainers in voter education.
He said it became necessary for people to understand and have adequate knowledge of the voting process as the Osun State governorship election is around the corner.
