List of youths who won’t vote in Ondo election

Eligible but disenfranchised, below are Ondo youths who won’t participate in the election as they lament exclusion.

OnyxNews Nigeria reports that Rowland Olateju, a resident of Shagari Estate in Akure, Ondo State capital, was filled with disappointment and sadness while speaking with some newsmen because he will not vote in today’s election.

He will not vote because the Continuous Voter Registration exercise was not held after he turned 18 on March 24 this year.

The teenager, who completed his secondary education last year, said at least 10 of his friends who had attained voting age would also not vote, saying disenfranchising them was another indication of the failure to plan by necessary authorities, he made this clear while speaking at a business centre located along Oyemekun Road, Akure, where he works as an attendant.

Similarly, Mercy Asefeniomo, a Senior Secondary School 3 student of a public school in Akure, has reached voting age.

But she does not have the voter card, and for this, will not also participate in today’s election, despite her eagerness to vote for the first time in her life.

Olateru said he received several text messages, as well as calls from candidates asking him to vote for them, adding that based on campaign promises and programmes of those standing elections, he had already chosen his favourite who would have been rewarded with a vote.

“But my vote won’t be part of what my candidate will get in the poll. I still pray my candidate wins. After I followed his campaign activities for a few days, I fell in love and I would have voted for him.

“Unfortunately, I won’t vote. I don’t want to imagine the number of youths in this state who are of voting age but will not vote in this election because there was no registration of new voters,” he lamented.

He further said he had contemplated registering during the last Continue Voter Registration held before 2019 general elections in the state.

“But I did not eventually register, because I felt since I would be 18 years of age in a couple of months, I should obtain a voter card when I would not be scared of being discovered to be underage.

“Now that I am 18, I could not register to vote and I will not vote. We had expected the registration of new voters before the governorship poll.

“My guardian was constantly talking about it, but when it was not mentioned again by INEC, we all forgot about it. My enthusiasm in voting was however reawakened when the campaign for this election started and we started hearing politicians speak about their plans,” Olateru said.

Another teenager who would not vote is Mercy, despite being above age 18.

For Asefeniomo, the electoral body did not emphasize why fresh voters had not been registered ahead of the poll and advised that other means of registration without the registrants of having to gather in large numbers should be in place to avert a reccurrence of the situation.

A 20-year-old resident, Esther Funminiyi, who is a tailoring apprentice in Akure, will not also vote in today’s poll because she delayed her registration.

She said she had relocated to Akure, her hometown, from Kogi State in August 2018, adding that she could have registered as a voter in her neighbourhood during the time, but for the large crowd that she saw at the registration centre when she tried on two occasions.

She said, “Because of that, I began to procrastinate. I was a bit new in the state when the registration was done in my area in 2019 but I made an attempt to register twice, but there were some people already in the queue waiting to be registered on those two occasions.”

Damilola Oluyemi is another eligible and eager, a youth who has reached voting age but will not vote in the governorship election because new voters were not registered by INEC.

The university admission seeker lamented that many youths in her category would be stripped of their right to vote, owing to non-registration of new voters, stressing that the development would impact on the result of the poll, especially in urban centres where most of the eligible but disenfranchised youths resided.

Asked whether she knew why new voters were not registered, the 19-year-old said one of her sisters who made an enquiry about it at the INEC head office was told that the coronavirus pandemic prevented the commission from holding the Continuous Voter Registration exercise.

Apart from youths who just turned 18 but will not participate in the election, many residents who had registered but had yet to collect their PVCs will not also vote because of the suspension of the distribution of PVCs by INEC.

The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ondo State, Mr Rufus Akeju, had at a stakeholders’ meeting for the governorship poll held in Akure on Wednesday, said, “It is extremely important for me to inform you that the commission has suspended the Continuous Voter Registration exercise and the implication is that the window of opportunity for new registrants, distribution of Permanent Voter Cards, transfer of registration and replacement of lost or defaced PVCs has been shut for the meantime owing to the ravaging pandemic.”

The REC also said the number of registered voters stood at 1,822, 346, and a total of 1,478,460 PVCs had been collected while the PVCs that are not collected are 372,888.