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• Deletes 2,780,756 invalid registrations

• Bayelsa (307,513), Ebonyi (240,063), Rivers (156,207) top list of invalid registrations

 

‘Seun Ibukun-Oni, Abuja

 

DAILY COURIER – In preparation for the forthcoming 2023 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has validated 9,518,188 new eligible voters to increase the total eligible voters in Nigeria to 84,004,084.

The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu made the disclosure at the third quarterly meeting with political parties for the year 2022, on Wednesday October 26, 2022.

The Continuous Voters Registration, CVR exercise which started on June 28, 2021 lasted for thirteen consecutive months until its suspension on July 31, 2022. During that period, INEC gave Nigerians regular weekly update showing the progress of the exercise nationwide, including analysis of the distribution of voters by age, occupation, gender and disability for our planning purposes and for public information climaxed with the updated voters register.

The Chairman’s statement reads in part: “At the end of the exercise, 12,298,944 Nigerians successfully completed the registration as new voters. All along, we have repeatedly assured Nigerians that our process of cleaning up the register is robust. After a rigorous cleaning-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), a total of 2,780,756 (22.6%) were identified as ineligible registrants and invalidated from the record, among them double/multiple registrants, underaged persons and outrightly fake registrations that fail to meet our business rules. Consequently, the number of valid registrations (post-ABIS) is 9,518,188.

“In terms of demographic distribution, 7.2 million new voters or 76.5% are young people between 18-34 years while there is a slightly higher number of female (4.8 million or 50.82%) than male (4.6 million or 49.18%) voters. In terms of occupation, 3.8 million (40.8%) are students. Hard copies giving the full details of the distribution of the new voters are included in your folders for this meeting. The soft copy has already been uploaded to the Commission’s website and social media platforms.”

With the 9,518,188 new eligible voters added to the existing register of 84,004,084 voters. The preliminary register of voters in Nigeria now stands at 93,522,272. It is preliminary because Section 19(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act 2022 requires the Commission to display the hard copies of the register of voters for each Registration Area (Ward) and Local Government Area (and simultaneously publish the entire register on the Commission’s website) for a period of two weeks for scrutiny, claims and objections by citizens not later than 90 days to a General Election.

Bayelsa (307,513), Ebonyi (240,063), Rivers (156,207) top list of invalid registrations. While Zamfara (26,679), Yobe (32,776) and Gombe (37,793) have fewest invalid registrations.

“Accordingly, in the next few days, the Commission will print 9,352,228 pages of the register. The hard copywill be displayed for each of the 8,809 Registration Areas (Wards) and 774 Local Government Areas nationwide while the entire register will be published on our website for claims and objections as required by law. The display of the physical register will take place at the designated centers from Saturday 12th – Friday 25thNovember 2022. Further details, including the procedure for filing claims and objections, will be released by the Commission next week. I would like to appeal to all Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the display to scrutinize the list and help us to clean it up further so that the final register of voters for the 2023 General Election can be compiled and published.

“The Commission is also working hard to ensure the completion of printing of remaining PVCs for new voters as well as those that applied to transfer or the replacement of their lost or damaged cards. In the coming days, we will also inform Nigerians of the detailed plan to ensure a seamless collection of the PVCs. We are aware that Nigerians expect an improvement in the procedure for PVC collection. Since the end of the CVR in July this year, we have been working to ensure that citizens have a pleasant experience when they come to collect their cards” he added.