Edo 2020: Anxiety among journalists over fear of kidnap

The roads have been notorious for kidnapping and journalists fear that because of the election, there would be fewer police checkpoints as they have all been deployed for election duties.

To forestall such, some of the journalists in Edo have agreed that the way out is to move in convoy.

A reporter with a national medium said “The situation is frightful because along the Hartman farm where kidnapping has been will not be manned because of the election. The way out is for us to move in convoy to reduce the tension”

Meanwhile, not less than 483,796 eligible voters would not be able to vote today because they did not collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).

This was contained in a document of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) titled “Delimitation of Edo State”

The State has 18 Local Government Areas, with 192 wards and 2627 polling units.

A further breakdown of the registered voters’ figure showed that the make accounts for 1,159,325 (52 per cent) while the 1,051,209 are females (48 per cent).

Similarly, from the total registered voters, Youths (18 – 35 years) account for 50 percent (1,105,338); Middle Aged (36 – 50 years) account for 29.1 percent (643,551); Elderly (51 – 70 years) has 15.99 percent (353,508); with the Old (70+ years) account for 4. 89 percent (108,137).

Further distribution of registered voters in the three senatorial districts of the state showed Edo South has the highest figure of 1, 281, 414 with the North and Central senatorial districts having 564,122 and 364,998 respectively.