INEC to publish new voters register in 774 LGAs
In order to purge the nation’s voter rolls in time for the 2023 election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has asked for increased collaboration with CSOs.
This was said by INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu on Thursday in Abuja during the commission’s quarterly meeting with the CSOs.
At the recently finished Continuous Voter Registration, Mr. Yakubu said that 12,298,944 new voters successfully completed their registrations (CVR).
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According to him, a total of 2,780,756 (22.6%) were identified as ineligible registrants and invalidated from the record as a result of double/multiple registrations, underage individuals, and outright fake registrations after a thorough cleaning-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), he said.
In addition to the 84,004,084 voters already registered, he said that once the ineligible registrants were removed from the list, a total of 9,518,188 new voters were added, giving Nigeria a preliminary total of 93,522,272 registered voters.
According to the law, Mr. Yakubu stated, the commission would publish the new register in hard copy at designated locations in each of the 8,809 Registration Areas (Wards) and 774 LGAs located throughout the nation. The commission would also post the entire register online from Saturday, November 12, to Friday, November 25, so that Nigerians could submit claims and objections.
“I will like to appeal to all Nigerians to use the opportunity of the exhibition to review the list and help us clean it further so that the official voter registration for the general elections in 2023 can be created and published,” he said.
The law required that Nigerians assist us, so we are printing 9.3 million copies of the register and displaying it at the wards and local governments across the country. “We played our own part, which was to do the initial cleaning up of the register,” the statement continued.
Let me make the same plea to civil society and Nigerians as a whole: “Please, when we paste the list, check and scrutinize so that if there are still ineligible persons in the register, kindly draw our attention to it so that, at the end of the day, we’ll have a clearer and better register for the election.”
Regarding the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), Mr. Yakubu stated that INEC was working to assure the printing of all the PVCs still needed for new voters as well as those who requested a transfer or a replacement for their lost or damaged cards.
He stated that INEC will inform Nigerians of its strategy to ensure that the PVCs could be picked up in the upcoming days without any issues.
Since the CVR came to an end in July of this year, we have been making efforts to guarantee that residents have a positive experience when they go to pick up their cards, including engaging with civil society organizations on a pilot exercise in the Federal Capital Territory.
“With the help of the FCT and certain civil society organizations, we have been conducting a pilot. We have been receiving different letters from various civil society organizations volunteering to work with the commission to ensure a seamless collecting of the PVCs while we investigate the possibilities of scaling up the FCT pilot for statewide application.
“At this meeting, we’ll talk about the FCT pilot, our work with CSOs, and any other suggestions they may have to make things easier for us.
It is not the INEC election; it is our election. Nigeria is holding elections. We cannot have the kind of credible elections that we all desire unless we band together.
It applies to more than only INEC. “It is for all of us as Nigerians,” he said. “We will provide every piece of information to any sincere person or organization that wants to work with the commission to deliver credible elections in 2023.”
He urged the CSOs to continue their assistance, stating that the commission’s principal objective was to ensure a free and fair election in 2023.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Women’s Trust Fund, Mufuliat Fijabi, spoke on behalf of the CSOs and reaffirmed their dedication to improve the electoral process in Nigeria.
