Elections will not hold in 40 polling units in the November 11 governorship elections in Bayelsa and Imo states, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said yesterday.
The commission, in a statement by the National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education, Sam Olumelun, said that elections will not be held in those polling units because there are no registered voters.
Also, the umpire has released the list of Permanent Voter Cards collected in the Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa states ahead of the elections.
Imo State with the highest number of registered voters has the highest number of uncollected voter cards with 101,003 uncollected PVCs. Bayelsa has about 39, 249 uncollected PVCs.
According to the statement, about 99,494 PVCs were not collected in Kogi State.
The statement reads,
“The Commission met today, Monday 30th October 2023, specifically to review the ongoing preparations for the off-cycle Governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States scheduled for Saturday, 11th November 2023.
“As was done in recent elections, including the 2023 General Election, the Commission is publishing the comprehensive information of collected and uncollected Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) in the three States on polling unit basis.
“The information also gives the distribution of the polling units by Local Government Areas, Registration Areas/Wards, the names of the polling units, their code numbers, number of registered voters and the number of collected as well as uncollected PVCs.
“Equally significantly, the list provides the names and locations of the two polling units in Bayelsa State and 38 in Imo State without registered voters.
“The breakdown for the three States indicates that out of 1,056,862 registered voters in Bayelsa State, 1,017,613 have collected their PVCs and 39, 249 are uncollected.
“In Imo State, the number of registered voters is 2,419,922 out of which 2,318,919 have collected their PVCs and 101,003 are uncollected, while in Kogi State, out of 1,932,654 registered voters, 1,833,160 have collected their PVCs and leaving 99,494 uncollected.”
Similarly, the Federal Government has voted a sum of N18bn for the conduct of the Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi governorship elections.
Minister of Budget and Economic Planning Atiku Bagudu, who made this known on Monday after the Federal Executive Council Meeting, said the sum had been captured in the N2.1 trillion 2023 supplementary budget.
