Youths Have Potential To Determine 2023 Elections Says INEC National Commissioner, Festus Okoye

By Sylvia Akpan and Mary Bassey

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Barrister Festus Okoye, the National Commissioner in charge of information and voter’s education in the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has said the data from the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration, CVR of the commission shows that the youths have the potential to determine the 2023 general elections.

Mr. Okoye stated this on the sidelines of an event to mark Sparkling 92.3 FM’s fourth anniversary in Calabar on Thursday in Calabar where he also presented a keynote address on “The Role of The Media in Addressing Political Misinformation Causing Spread of Violence.”

He said data from the ongoing CVR for the Permanent Voters Card, PVC which will be used in voting shows that 80 percent of those enrolling are youths, hence they can decide the outcome of elections.

“In the Continuous Voter’s Registration, those who have done their online registration and those who participated in physical registration are young people between the ages of 18 and 34,” Okoye said, adding that this, “is almost 80 percent of those who have registered.”

He continued: “And thus, if the youths of this country maximize their position, if they collect their PVC, and then the turn up on election day, there are definitely going to be the one that will decide the 2023 general election.”

In his address, Mr. Okoye said there was need for people to exhibit their rights to different beliefs, recognition of ethnicity, religiosity among others with caution to minimize violence that wil impact on the outcome of elections.

1 President, 28 Governors, 109 Senators, 360 House of Representatives members and over 900 State House of Assembly members will be elected in the 2023 general elections.

Addressing the allegation of INEC rigging elections, Mr. Okoye said Nigerians who are recruited as ad-hoc staff and not INEC were saddled with the responsibility of conducting elections at the polling unit and lamented that many Nigerians did not understand the difference between INEC and the State electoral commissions.

He explained that those currently registering in the CVR, will get their PVCs before the forthcoming elections even as he stressed that the commission does not have a particular server where it transmits election results to.