The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday said it would release the timetable for Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial elections coming up in 2018.

The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in Abuja. Yakubu said that INEC has started preparations for the elections in the two states.

“The end-of-tenure governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states will be conducted next year.

“In keeping with the commission’s tradition of giving all stakeholders ample time to prepare, the timetable and schedule of activities for the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections will be released on Thursday,” Yakubu said.

He added that INEC would on Saturday conduct bye-election in Eti-Osa state constituency in Lagos state.

“Only yesterday, we received the official declaration of vacancy by the Honourable Speaker House of Representatives for the Kware/Wamakko Federal Constituency in Sokoto state.

“The timetable and schedule of activities for the election would be released on Tuesday.”

Yakubu said that as part of the preparation for 2019 general elections, which remained 505 days, the commission would continue to explore ways by which all processes associated with Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were improved upon.

He said that so far 2,786,405 citizens have registered in ongoing CVR exercise of which 1,619,513 representing 58 percent were males while 1,166,892 (42 percent) were females.

“In addition, 108,752 unclaimed permanent voters’ cards were collected.

“The commission has also recorded 132,431 requests for transfer from original places of registration to new locations.

“We also received 261,429 requests for replacement of PVCs that were damaged, defaced or wrong entries of personal and other details.”