Excitement as Nigerians elect President, NASS members today

Nigerians today go to the poll to elect their president and 469 members of the National Assembly (NASS).

This is coming a week after the exercise was rescheduled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) late Friday night.

While the electoral umpire would conduct only the presidential and NASS election this Saturday, the poll for the governorship and State Houses of Assembly and area council election for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would hold on March 9.

The election will hold at 119,973 polling units across the country, while collation of results will take place in 8,809 Registration Areas or Wards, 774 Local Government Areas, 36 States and the FCT.

The polling units are expected to open by 8 a.m. and close by 2 p.m. with the last person on the line allowed to vote.

INEC had said that the use of Smart Card Readers and Permanent Voter Cards were compulsory for the elections.

Specifics

The major presidential contenders are incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Demographic Party (PDP).

Others include Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC), Felix Osakwe of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), and Christopher Okotie of Fresh Party.

For the National Assembly elections, 1,904 are vying for 109 Senatorial seats, while 4,680 candidates are competing for the 360 seats in the House of Representatives.

Specifically, Nigeria’s NASS is made up of 109 members of the Senate or Red Chamber and 360 members of the House of Representatives or Green Chamber.

The total number of registered voters in the country is 84,004,084, with 44,405,439 (52.86 per cent) as male, and 39,598,645 (47.14 per cent) as female.

Of the 84,004,084 registered voters nationwide, 72,775,502 , representing 86.63 per cent who have collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) are eligible to participate in the elections, as 11,228,582 or 13. 7 per cent of the printed PVCs are yet to be uncollected.

Breakdown

The breakdown of the number of collected PVCs per state shows that Lagos with the highest number of registered voters of 6,750,291, recorded 5,531,389 collected PVCs, and 1,038,902 uncollected PVCs; followed by Kano with 4,696,747 collected PVCs and 761,000 uncollected cards out of the 5,457,747 registered voters in the state.

Third on the list was Kaduna State with 3,648,831 collected and 283,661 uncollected cards from 5,457,747 registered voters, while Katsina State with 3,230,230 registered voters followed with 3,187,988 collected PVC and 42,242 uncollected cards.

The statistics also revealed Ekiti State with 909,996 registered voters to have the least number of collected PVCs which is 666,591, and 243,376 uncollected cards; followed by Bayelsa with 769,509 collected cards and 153,673 uncollected PVCs out of the 923,182 total registered voters in the state.

Percentage of collected PVCs to registered voters per state indicates that Kastina has the highest percentage of 98.69 collected PVCs, followed by Taraba with 97.30 percentage, Gombe 95.76 and Kebbi 95.13 percentage of collected PVCs.

The states with the least percentage of collected PVCs compared to registered voters were Ogun with 71.36 per cent, Ekiti with 73.25 per cent and followed by Oyo with 74.17 per cent.

A breakdown of the registered voters by regions shows that the South-south has 12,841,279 or 15.29 per cent of the 84,004,084 total number of registered voters nationally.

The North-central has 13,366,070 voters, representing 15.91 per cent; South-east 10,057,130 registered voters or 11.91 per cent, and South-west 16,292,212 or 19.39 per cent of the total number of voters.

The North-west has 20,158,100 voters, representing 24 per cent of the registered voters, while the North-east has 11,289, 293 or 13.44 per cent of the total registered voters.

Logistics

Three ballot boxes will be provided for the national election, the box with red cover for presidential, black cover for Senatorial and green cover ballot box for the House of Representatives.

Eligible voters are advised to visit gotomypu.ng to obtain the location to their polling units.