The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is expected to double print about 93 million ballot papers for the conduct of the 2023 Presidential election in Nigeria.
The National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, Festus Okoye who stated this Friday in Uyo during the 2022 AGM/8th Chief O. W. Udoh Memorial lecture/dinner by Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Akwa Ibom State chapter said the commission would print a total of 186 million ballot papers.
Speaking on the theme Strategic Communication and Credible 2023 Electioneering in Nigeria, Okoye said INEC would print ballot papers double the number required for the presidential election.
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According to him, INEC instead of printing 93 million for the election will double the number in case of any presidential run-off election.
‘‘We will print twice the number in case of run-off election. If there is no run-off Presidential election, then we will destroy the 93 million ballot papers,’’ he said.
Okoye, however, announced that the commission would print 93 million ballot papers for the National Assembly (House of Representatives and Senate) and same quantities for state House of Assembly.
‘‘However, the body would print about 70 million for the governorship election because we will only conduct the election in 28 states.’’
On multiple and double registration, he mentioned that Bayelsa, and Ebonyi as topping the list of states with the highest number of multiple and invalid voters as Nigeria’s voter population.
The INEC Commissioner said INEC delisted 2,780,756 from 12,298,944 new voters who completed the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise.
Okoye said “In terms of demographic distribution, 7.2 million new voters or 76.5% are young people between 18-34 years.”
The Chairman of the occasion, Hon. Aniekan Umanah described the lecture as apt and timely coming at a time the Country is about to conduct another general elections.
Umanah who is representing Abak/Etim Ekpo/Ika Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives challenged public relations professionals to be conversant with the Electoral Act, 2022 to be able to educate the voters.
He urged the public relations professionals to acquaint themselves with the laws governing the conduct of elections to be able to educate the populace to vote for credible leaders who will drive visions of a greater Nigeria.
Earlier, the Akwa Ibom Chairman of NIPR, Nsemeke Udoakpan had said ‘‘In fact, credible elections remain the hallmark of true democracy. One of the greatest indices of a democratic society is in its ability to conduct periodic, credible elections.
‘‘The choice of Barr. Festus Okoye, a National Commissioner with INEC, is even more appropriate and we can’t thank him enough for accepting our invitation.’’
