By Mumini Abdulkareem
The Kwara State Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said the commission is targeting no fewer than 3.5 million registered voters for the 2023 election in the state.
The state chairman of INEC, Mallam Garba Attahiru Madami stated this on Thursday during an exclusive interview in his office on the level of preparation of the commission for the forthcoming electoral exercise.
According to him, Kwarans especially the youths are very anxious to vote in the 2023 election, adding that many of them have been calling and sending messages to find out when the voters registration and collection of PVCs will commence in the state.
โWe are still expecting funds from the headquarters to commence the voters registration exercise. If not for the pandemic, the exercise would have started around April. I have been getting calls, texts messages and letters from youths that they wantย to register, that they’reย 18 but I tell them we have not started registration yet. I believe by the time we open registration next year, many of these young boys that have not register will do so and many people will be keen to collect their PVC because they knew that election counted the last time and it will also count this timeโ, he noted.
On the contest for the Ilorin South constituency at the state House of Assembly, Madami said โThe Supreme Court which is the highest in the land has already given a judgment on the issue which should be implemented. To me, the court is too soft on its decisions on this issue and people play on the intelligence of our Judges. Somebody should be used as an example. Both the tribunal, appeal and apex court have spoken and yet that order is yet to be obeyed for how many months now. How will a court give judgment, Supreme Court for that matter and yet they are still playing pranksโ.
He also said โeverybody should come out en mass for the voters registration. Next year, we’re going to take the voters registration to the ward levels so that everybody will register and collect their PVCs. What I intend to do base on the remaining PVCs which is still with the central bank, is to print out names of those yet to collect their own, local government by local government and display it at the council secretariats for people to check if their names are there. A date will be fixed for the collection and we will now push our staff to the local governments for the collection and registration. This is our plan until the whole year is exhausted.
โI’m looking forward to registering one million people. I need to push Kwara to 2.5 million before I leave here if I’m still the REC. we have a good plan and the people are keen. I know that Kwara people are very anxious and Iโm ready to give them that opportunity. Our registration now is 1.4m and I want to see how I can raise it to 2.5m next year as a target and by the time we go for 2023 election, we should be going to 3 million registered voters in Kwara. One of the problems I faced when a came was low turnout, it was below one million, I was the one that raised it to 1.4 and I had 3 months to do it before electionโ, he submitted.
On the recent rainstorm that left many of the offices including ICT centres and newly constructed halls destroyed, the INEC chairman said the national headquarters of the commission has finally gotten across to them last week with a view to commencing the repairs of the destroyed facilities adding that no other help has been received from any other quarters months after the incident.
