Ibadan – The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has disclosed that there are 2,934,107 registered voters in Oyo state, going by the last 2019 General Elections.
It however said the commission will still come up with an update of the total number of registered voters before the commencement of the forthcoming 2023 elections after the termination of the ongoing Continous Voters Registration.
These were made known by the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Oyo state, Barrister Mutiu Agboke, at the valedictory media briefing held at the INEC State headquarters, Ibadan, on Tuesday 5th July, 2022, to commemorate the end of his five-year tenure as REC.
It would be recalled that Agboke and 19 other RECs will retire in August following the expiration of their 5-year tenure.
Agboke whose five years appointment ends on Wednesday, 6th July 2022, however, agreed to the fact that vote-buying remained a major concern in the quest to achieve credible, free and fair elections in Nigeria.
Agboke said all other CVR activities such as transfer, correction of personal details, and replacement of damaged or defaced PVCs can be done online through cvr.inecnigeria.org
According to him, the continuation of the CVR became necessary to ensure that all eligible and interested registrants are captured in the process.
In preparation for the coming election, INEC also disclosed that an additional 1,607 polling units have been converted to the existing 4,783 to make a total of 6,390 polling units in Oyo state.
Agboke however appealed to the media to collaborate with the commission in educating the electorates to visit any of its offices in the 33 local government areas to collect their PVCs ahead of the coming elections.
The Oyo electoral umpire boss also disclosed that the commission has retired the usual smart card reader and introduced Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS.
The new technology would serve the purpose of voter accreditation, verification and uploading of results from polling units.
He said the commission has also introduced the INEC result viewing portal, iREV, through which INEC would upload polling unit results to a central portal for public viewing, via https://www.inecelectionresults.ng.
He said, “With these technologies, result snatching and attacks at collation centre will be definitely reduced”.
He explained that the commission is working with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to ensure the arrest and prosecution of anyone caught.
He, therefore, warned journalists covering elections not to interfere with processes and procedures of voting or in any way distract any election official in the performance of their duties.
