By Vincent Ujumadu

AWKA—ANAMBRA State currently has about 2.8 million registered voters, Governor Willie Obiano’s adviser on special duties in charge of voters’ registration, Dr. Florence Akudo has said.

There were about 1.7 million before last November’s governorship election in the state and the remarkable improvement had been attributed to vigorous campaign mounted by the state government in all parts of the state for eligible voters to obtain their voters’ cards.

Akudo, who addressed reporters in Awka, however, regretted that many people had not collected their cards and urged registered voters yet to collect their permanent voters’ cards, PVCs, to do so immediately following the threat by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to destroy all unclaimed PVCs after a reasonable period of time.

She called on those who registered and had not collected their PVCs to go to INEC offices where they registered to collect the cards to enable them vote in future elections.

According to her, Governor Obiano placed so much emphasis on the need for eligible people to register and collect their cards, adding that it was for that reason that he set up an office sorely meant for voters registration exercise and voter education.

She said that her office was working with the major stakeholders, including the traditional rulers, town unions at all levels, traders’ unions, students’ union governments in tertiary institutions, both public and private ones, as well as religious leaders and nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, to ensure that all eligible voters were registered and their PVCs collected in readiness for the 2019 general elections.

She also explained that her office would soon embark on state –wide voter education programme to urge people to ensure they were armed with their voters’ cards to enable them exercise their franchise during elections.