Asaba Community Renews Support for Tinubu, Oborevwori As Asagba Prof Azinge Leads Sensitisation for CVR

Asaba Community Renews Support for Tinubu, Oborevwori As Asagba Prof Azinge Leads Sensitisation for CVR

The Asagba of Asaba, His Royal Majesty, Prof Epiphany Azinge, SAN, OON, FNIALS; on Wednesday, convoked a town hall meeting to discuss the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise and how to scale it up to an appreciable level in his kingdom.

The meeting, which was a follow up to the promise of the Asaba Monarch to lead a sensitization campaign on the CVR in Asaba when the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Joash Amupitan, SAN; visited him recently in Abuja, was attended by INEC officials in the state.

Addressing the gathering, Asagba Prof Azinge said the INEC Chairman, during the visit, clearly requested that traditional rulers should lead advocacy and awareness creation for the voter registration in their domains, underscoring the great importance attached to it.

The First Class King stated that with his knowledge of the Electoral law, he had walked through the terrain of electoral matters for over four decades, with a clear understanding that voting remained the most fundamental of all rights, and even considered to be more fundamental than the right to life.

He said: “Today we are here to sensitize our people and I’m leading the charge from the throne to get our people to come out in their numbers to register to vote, so that they can take part in this very important assignment; which is voting to elect people into offices.

“I don’t know how it was done in the past, but members of the political class will always tell you that they have their way of doing it. I don’t know what their way is, what I know is that we have to do it the way it has to be done. Do we have anything to gain? Yes we do. My challenge is that Asaba has become a metropolis of a kind; and whenever we talk about the rapid influx of peace into Asaba, that Asaba is exploding exponentially in terms of number, it means that whatever voting strength we had in 2023 is no longer what it is now.

“We should be able to have that demography that tells us that in 2023 so so so number registered to vote, but now, inching closer to 2027, the number has multiplied. So we must be abreast of what is going on. We want to start with Asaba people. Increasingly we are aware that the people now domiciled in Asaba, resident in Asaba, the non indigenes may even be more than the Indigenes.

“We want to be sure that we also take this sensitisation to every nook and cranny of Asaba, including the satellite areas, and that we can show, with certainty, the number of eligible voters that we have. Surely, there are requirements for registration, and I’m sure that’s what the INEC officials will talk about, and provide answers to some fundamental questions.

“It’s obvious that some challenges will be there, but we are more interested in the number we are capable of pulling out from Asaba. So, that’s why we are here, and we are on this sensitisation conscious of the fact that if we are able to pull out a sizable number as our voting strength, it can attract so many things to us. We can use it to bargain with the government of the day, and they will know that we have the capacity to deliver the greatest number of votes, and that should be our target.

“This is the time for us to demonstrate that we are not just the capital city; that we have what it takes to install a government, and our votes are very very important and should be so recognised. So, this is not a walk in the path at all, it is very sensitive to us because the investments that we can attract, the appointments that we can get, among so many other things, will depend largely on what we are able to register. So, we are not going to take it for granted.

“While the politicians will do theirs, we have to do ours, that’s why we are here. So, the sensitization will leave this hall and then flow to the Ogbes, the Ebos, and the satellite areas. Let us get our young ones who are of voting age, let them come out and register; and then we also appeal to INEC officials to spend quality time in Asaba and the environs, moving from one quarter to another to make sure that all the eligible people are captured”.

The Monarch declared that the voter card would be used for many things in Asaba, going forward, including approvals for burials, marriages, scholarship and bursary awards; adding that the battle would be extended to the markets and insisting that Asaba people, wherever they might be, must register in their numbers, while urging landlords in Asaba to prevail on their tenants to register.

“As a traditional ruler, ordinarily I am supposed to be apolitical. I am not supposed to dable into politics. But we may have to wave that option because I led a group of Asaba opinion leaders to Government House sometime last year where, as a community, we clearly declared our support for Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and endorsed him for a second term in office. We are not prepared to depart from that, so I am only repeating what we have already told the Governor. I am not playing politics; it was Asaba community that spoke and our position has not changed.

“So, to that extent our vote is very important, for the continuity of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the MORE Agenda of Governor Sheriff Obborevwori. We must support our Governor who has done well for the Asaba community and is prepared to do more. Let us have that at the back of our mind. We need more investment in Asaba, we need industries in Asaba, we have to engage our youthful population so that they will have jobs to do, we want Federal appointments for some of our sons and daughters. It is only through the instrumentality of the government of the day that we can achieve all that”, the Asagba noted.

Taking the audience, which included Okpala Ukwus, Obis, Olinzeles, Ogbueshis, and a cross section of the community through the nitty-gritty of the CVR exercise, the Head of Unit, Voter Education, of INEC in Delta State, Regha Ufuoma; commended Asagba Prof Azinge for making voter education the focus of the town hall meeting, 

She said no election could take place without a solid and consolidated voter register, hence the emphasis on voter registration, explaining that the exercise was tagged continuous because it started in 2011.

Ufuoma added that registration was open to new voters who had attained the age of 18, those transferring to other places of abode, those seeking updates on their records, like change of name or marital status; and those seeking to correct wrongly spelt names or mistakes in gender, pointing out that all these were being done to avoid double registration.

The HOU, Voter Education, stated that while the first phase of the exercise took place in the various INEC offices nationwide between August 18 and December 10, 2025, the second phase, which started on January 5, to end April 17, 2026, would be taking place at the Wards, with the intention of getting closer to the people.

She revealed that the outcome of the first phase was not encouraging and urged the people of Asaba to not only make themselves available for registration, but to also encourage others to do so to ensure a more successful exercise that would add value to the electoral system.