A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Mr. Akinlayo Kolawole, has urged Ekiti electorate to get their permanent voter cards (PVCs) handy and use it to elect credible candidate in the July 14 governorship election.
He said he was uncomfortable with the revelation by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that over 200,000 PVCs are yet to be claimed by their owners in Ekiti.
He said the best way to defeat the continuity agenda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led government under Governor Ayodele Fayose is for the electorate to collect their PVCs and show interest in who governs them.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ekiti, Prof. Abduganiy Raji, had recently given a startling revelation that the commission still has large numbers of unclaimed PVCs.
Kolawole revealed that it was necessary to collect the PVCs because election that could determine their fate was barely three months.
The APC House of Representatives aspirant in Ekiti North Federal constituency 2, said this in Ado Ekiti yesterday while interacting with newsmen.
He advised that the people of the state must learn from Northerners who normally recorded high turnout during elections, saying this has helped to stabilize politics in that axis of the country.
“Our people must show interest in who governs them. Voter apathy is high in this state and the elections of the past confirmed this.
“We in APC are not comfortable that some PVCs are yet to be collected. We have an uphill task before us, which is to get rid of a bad governance and people can only realize this when they display their franchise rights.
“In 2014, Ekiti recorded 50.32 percent turnout and this was abysmally low. The state then had a total of 733,766 registered voters and the number of votes cast was 360, 455, which was not good for our democracy.
“With this, it was evident that our people needed political awareness through sensitization and APC must work on this to brighten our chances”, he stated.
Kolawole urged politicians canvassing for zoning to rather think of how best the party can win the election than to be insisting on a particular demand that can dim our chances.
“The best way the party can win this election is for the delegates to elect a popular candidate at the primary.
“As an opposition party, we will be making a fatal mistake if we place high premium on zoning or other sectional parameter at this critical time.
“I quite shared the view that zoning is a legitimate agitation, but such could be counterproductive if adopted at this time”, he clarified.
