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Friday, 13 April 2018

Voter registration: Osun declares April 16 public holiday

The Osun government has declared Monday next week public holiday to enable the workers in the state to participate in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Obawale Adebisi, commissioner for home affairs in a statement on Thursday, April 12, in Osogbo, said the holiday was to provide ample opportunity to eligible voters to participate in the exercise.
Adebisi urged those that had yet to register to use the holiday period to do so, and those that had registered to also use the period to collect their Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC).
According to him, ''Voter registration and collection of PVCs are important and strategic to the electoral process and have capability of strengthening the democratic governance.
''Voter registration helps to facilitate the credibility of the electoral process and democratic governance. That is why government found it imperative to create an ample opportunity by declaring Monday a work-free day, being the last day for the eligible voters to register.
''Thus, government passionately urges the people to go out and register in the remaining days, while those who have lost or defaced their cards can register afresh. The affected ones should guard against registering twice as each person is only allowed to register once.''
Adebisi said since the CRV was periodic, the state government considered it imperative to dedicate a day for fresh potential voters to register to enable them to exercise their franchise during elections.
The commissioner enjoined the residents of the state who had attained 18 years and above to go to the nearest registration centres to them to register.
He said a voter that had relocated to a new place should also approach the INEC office in the new area for transfer of voters’ card to enable him or her to participate in elections there. Newsmen report that the second quarter of the exercise started on April 11 and will end on April 16
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission Mahmood Yakubu said electronic voting will not be used in 2019.
Yakubu said this in Abuja on Wednesday, April 11, at the end opening of a three-day International Conference of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) in West and Southern African countries in Abuja themed “Opportunities and Challenges in the Use of Technology: Experiences from West and Southern Africa”.
The INEC boss, who also doubles as the president of ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC), however, said that electronics would be deployed in the collation and transmission of elections results.

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