Records at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) indicate that no fewer than 1.72 million persons are eligible to vote in Saturday’s governorship polls in Edo State while 483,796 eligible voters will not participate.
An INEC document titled “Delimitation of Edo State”, shows that the ineligible voters in Edo is on account of failure to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
The consolidated figure of registered voters in the state as at August 2018 stands at 2,210,534 registered voters, while only 1,726,738 collected their PVCs, the document indicates.
The document shows that Edo has 18 Local Government Areas, with 192 Wards and 2,627 polling units.
A further breakdown of the registered voters figure in the document shows that male accounts for 1,159,325 (representing 52 per cent), while 1,051,209 are female (or 48 per cent).
Similarly, from the total registered voters, the youth (18 – 35 years) account for 50 per cent (1,105,338); Middle Aged (36 – 50 years) account for 29.1 per cent (643,551); and Elderly (51 – 70 years) has 15.99 per cent (353,508).
Eligible voters classified as the Old (70 years and above) account for 4.89 per cent (108,137).
Further distribution of registered voters in the three senatorial districts of the state shows that Edo South has the highest figure of 1,281,414: the North with 564,122: and Central senatorial district has 364,998.
Edo South has seven council areas – the North has six while Central has five Local Government Areas.
According to the number of collected PVCs, Oredo zone has 240,197; Ikpoba-Okha is 214,882; Egor has 158,817; Etsako West has 128,188 and Akoko Edo with 115,343.
Meanwhile, 24 hours to the election, hotel reservations within Benin and its environs were booked up by visitors.
Freedom Online learned that most have had their accommodation booked up as at Wednesday night.
Officials of the hotels visited said that the high volume of guests was not unconnected with the September 19 governorship election.
Some of the officials said that most of the reservations were done in groups either by organisations or individuals
They said that many of the reservations were also made weeks back.
Some newsmen accredited to cover the elections, who arrived Benin since Wednesday, encountered difficulties securing affordable hotel accommodation as they failed to make reservations ahead of time.
Some of the media practitioners are milling around the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Centre on Reservation Road, strategising on the best way to conduct coverage of the election.
A hotelier, Blessing Uwe, who runs a hotel on Airport Road, said that the last time the hotel had full capacity was in December 2019.
“Many of our guests have booked ahead of time and we had many coming since Wednesday who couldn’t find space,” she said.
Newsmen and election observers were seen expressing worry over the situation as they also struggled to sort out accreditation at INEC office on Sapele Road.
