Aiyedatiwa Seeks Awareness To Raise Voters’ Participation In Elections

Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa has said that Nigerian economic managers must prioritize funding to raise national awareness on election participation.

Speaking on Arise News on Monday, the governor said that a lot of people register to get Permanent Voters Cards to have as documents but are not active politically.

He said, “We need to encourage people to vote, and there is a need for a national awareness to be created for people to always come out to vote. Some of the citizens are passive, while others are active.

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“Not everyone that is registered is active, and this is not peculiar to Ondo State. It happens in every election all over the country.

“A lot of people registered to have their PVC because they just want to have that document, but when it comes to being active politically, not everyone that registered is active politically, and this has been happening in other elections conducted in other states, not just in Ondo State.”

He also dismissed reports about vote-buying, saying that the election was free and fair.

“Everybody is entitled to their opinion, depending on where they are speaking from and areas they visited. I want to tell you that not every location was visited by the so-called CSOs and observers, but really and truly, there are some locations where we have a delay, a bit of delay initially, when it comes to accreditation through the BVAS network, slowed down the process in some areas.

“Eventually, people were able to vote, but in some areas, they made such complaints as well. The BVAS was slow, but along the line, it picked up. That is why you can get that number of votes. If you look at the total number of votes of those who voted in the elections, the number is like every other election, and even though we have a higher figure in this very election than some of the elections that have been conducted in the previous elections.

“So even though the BVAS was failing at the point where it picked up and then people were able to vote and that was how we were able to record the numbers,” he added