The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Oyo State, has commenced training of officers to be deployed for the June 2 bye-election to fill the vacant Ibarapa East Constituency.
INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner for the state, Mr Mutiu Agboke, who declared the training open on Tuesday, at the Agodi headquarters of the commission, announced that the state office had taken delivery of 141,362 permanent voter cards (PVCs).
Agboke said the training of supervisory presiding officers (SPOs), who would subsequently train other officials to be deployed for the election, was necessary for the personnel to be acquainted with the latest regulation drawn up by the headquarters of the commission.
“The training will afford our officers the opportunity to be abreast of the current regulation as drawn up by the commission as against the usual regulations,” he said.
He gave a breakdown of the PVCs received to include those whose cards had been defaced or lost; those whose cards were omitted during production as well as those who freshly registered between April and Decemeber 2017.
“We have in our custody, the PVCs of the various electorate that were omitted in 2011 and 2015. There were some omissions in our record concerning voters in Afijio, Ibadan North and Ibadan North-East Local Government Areas. These omissions have been taken care of by the commission and their PVCs have equally been printed.
“But for those who registered between January 1, 2018, till date, I appeal to them to be patient as the exercise is ongoing. I can assure them that their PVCs would be ready before the general election next year,” he said.
He urged voters to visit the local government offices of INEC in their domains to collect their PVCs, assuring that all eligible voters would their PVCs for 2019 elections
