The ban on campaigns by political parties in preparation of the September 19 governorship election in Edo State, has been lifted by the The Independent National Electoral Commission.

INEC Head of Voter Education in Edo, Timidi Wariowei, stated that campaigns have officially commenced in the state.

Wariowei said, “Campaigns have officially started in the state. Campaigns start 90 days to the election date and it started on June 21.”

He also said that the electoral umpire had taken delivery of some non-sensitive materials and distributed same to the 18 local government areas of the state.

“The reason we distributed the materials early is that the office we occupy now has a small storage capacity.

“The storage facility cannot accommodate all the materials, so as the materials come we dispatch to our local government offices.

“The non-sensitive materials we have received so far are not complete so as they come in batches we distribute because of lack of space to keep them.”

According to Wariowei, the total registered voters as of 2019 is 2,210,534, while uncollected PVCs stands at 483,868.

INEC had cleared and displayed a list of candidates of 14 registered political parties, including the All Progressives Party and the Peoples Democratic Party being the major contenders, ahead of the polls.