Segun Osoba, a former governor of Ogun State, has encouraged people of the Southwest to deliver heavily Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 election.
Osoba, however, expressed concern over the number of uncollected permanent voter cards (PVCs) in the zone.
The former governor who spoke on Saturday at the inauguration of the APC campaign council in Ogun state, Osoba described the development as “disgraceful”.
“PVC is vote. This work is grassrooted. In the south-west, we have the highest uncollected PVCs — almost one million. Very disgraceful,” he said, while switching between Yoruba and English.
“I implore you to go on from Monday to collect your PVCs. That’s the beginning and the end of the election.”
Although Osoba put the figure at one million, in June 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had said over 11 million PVCs were uncollected during the 2019 elections, TheCable reported.
Giving a breakdown of the figure, Mohammed Haruna, INEC national commissioner for the federal capital territory (FCT), Nasarawa, Kaduna, and Plateau, had said, of the figure, the south-west had the highest number with over three million uncollected PVCs.
Meanwhile, INEC has fixed December 12, 2022 to January 22, 2023 for collection of PVCs in all LGAs.
Speaking further during the inauguration, Osoba said members of the APC should work hard towards the victory of the party at all levels in the 2023 elections.
“We have no choice than to deliver our votes massively for our presidential candidate, because we are the leaders of progressives, and we must make sure that we deliver heavily in all the elections,” he said.