The Independent National Electoral Commission says over 5.4 million voters registered to cast their ballots in the November 11 governorship elections in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa states.
INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun, made this known in a statement on Tuesday.
“The commission held its regular meeting today, Tuesday, October 10, 2023 and, among other issues, reviewed preparations for the off-cycle governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states.
“For the forthcoming elections, there are 1,056 862 registered voters in Bayelsa State; 2,419,922 in Imo State; and 1,932,654 in Kogi State, making a combined total of 5,409,438 registered voters for the three states,” Olumekun said.
He said soft copies of the complete register of voters for each state would be presented to the political parties participating in the elections.
He added, “For emphasis, 16 political parties are sponsoring candidates in Bayelsa State, 17 in Imo State and all the 18 parties in Kogi State.
“State chairmen of political parties or their designated representatives are invited to attend the event, which will take place at the Collation Centres in the state headquarters of the commission in Lokoja, Owerri and Yenagoa on Thursday, October 12, 2023 at 10.00 am.”
Olumekun aalso added that in furtherance of INEC’s commitment to deepening the deployment of technology for voter accreditation and result management, the commission had finalised preparations for mock accreditation of voters in the three states to test-run the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and upload of polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal.
“The exercise will take place simultaneously in the three states on Saturday, October 14, 2023 from 8.30 am to 2.30 pm.
“The list of designated polling units for each state has already been uploaded to our website and social media platforms.
“Lessons learnt from the exercise will be taken into consideration to ensure the seamless deployment of both the BVAS and IReV on election day. This is strictly a test run and not the actual election.
“Once again, the commission appeals to registered voters in the selected polling units to turn up with their Permanent Voters Cards for the exercise,” he stated.
He furthermore revealed that INEC had accredited 119 domestic and eight foreign observers for the November 11 governorship elections.
