The 2019 general elections will be for young people who constitute 81 per cent of registered voters , the Independent National Commission said in Abuja on Tuesday.
The chairman of INEC , Prof Mahmood Yakubu, stated this during an election summit for youths , where popular musicians were given awards for helping to mobilise youths to register for the elections.
Among those given awards were ace musician Innocent Idibia ( Tuface ), Ambassador Ketil Karlson , Head of European Union to Nigeria and ECOWAS .
Yakubu explained that another category of youths were drawn from the National Youth Service Corps and tertiary institutions to man the 119 , 973 polling centres in the country.
He said ,
“ About 22.3 million or 26 per cent of those who registered are officially described as students followed by the second category called farmers and fishermen to the tune of 13. 6 million , that is 16.2 per cent of the registered voters .”
“But among the farmers and fishermen , the majority are also young people . So , those between the ages of 18 and 35 constitute 42. 9 million , roughly 43 million of the registered voters which is 51 per cent of the total number of registered voters in the country .”
“But if you add the middle- aged category of 36- 50 which is 25 million or 30 per cent , young people in this country constitute 81 per cent of the registered voters in Nigeria. ”
While commending Tuface and others for mobilising youths to participate in the voter registration , the INEC boss urged them to continue to tell them to collect their Permanent Voter Cards.
1 comment