The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday issued a notice of election for the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Prof. Abdul-Ganiyu Raji, at a press conference in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday said this was in accordance with Section 30 (1) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended.
Raji explained that the section provided that INEC must give a notice of election not later than 90 days to the governorship election.
According to the notice, campaign by the parties for the election will begin on April 15 and end in the midnight of July 12.
He advised the parties to submit the names of their agents by June 30, with a warning that any party that failed to meet the deadline would not have agents for the election.
As part of efforts to ensure that more people register for the election, the REC said 531 registration centres had been created.
He noted that the continuous voter registration in the new registration centres would run between Wednesday April 11 and 16 simultaneously across 177 registration areas in the state.
According to him, the exercise became necessary in order to enhance more participation in the election.
Raji said, “I want to urge members of the public who are yet to register and have attained the voting age to come out and register as we are moving all these centres to them.
“We want to remove all the bottlenecks people have been complaining of which range from economic, to distance and also some political reasons. We are bringing the registration to their doorsteps.
“And we are promising and assuring the people that a few weeks after this exercise, the PVCs will be ready for collection till the eve of the election and we expect the people to go to our offices for their cards because no Permanent Voter Card, no election.”
The REC added that 513,000 PVCs had been distributed in the state, saying 218,000 cards had yet to be collected for those who registered before April 2017.
