‘255,296 Registered Ekiti Voters Will Not Vote’ – INEC #EkitiDecides

At least 255, 296, registered electorates will not be allowed to vote in today’s (Saturday) governorship election in the state because they did not get their permanent voters’ cards.

The Ekiti State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Halilu Paul, Friday said that the commission had announced to the people to get their permanent cards but due to various reasons many were unable to do so. Most of what the people will be presenting to the INEC officials will be the temporal card that is no longer accepted by the Commission.

Paul said, “We have been able give out 476,870 permanent voter’s cards out of the 732,166 in the voter’s register and that represents 64.98 per cent and comfortably we can say nearly 65 per cent has collected permanent voter’s cards. Let me reiterate that no voter will be accredited if he or she does not have their permanent voter’s card. So that is the maximum number of voters we are expecting.”

Speaking on the number of local and foreign observers that will monitor the governorship election, he said at least 1,900 observers have been accredited. 

“We have accredited local and foreign observers that will add value to the process as we have nothing to hide. We want people to observe what we are doing and then advise us better.”

The INEC boss who gave this information during a news conference in Ado Ekiti on Friday, promised that with the large number of security operatives in the state and the trained ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, the election would run smoothly.

He added that the result of the elections would be announced in Ekiti and not Abuja. He urged the media not to announce result until it has been endorsed by INEC.