Nigeria’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said a comprehensive list of registered voters for the 2023 election will be published.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu in a stakeholders briefing on Tuesday said that the registered voters will be published contrary to claims by some civil society organisations.
Yakubu said the register had been previously displayed at least three times in the last one year.
“At a media briefing yesterday, the commission was accused of failure to display the voters’ register as provided by Section 19(1) of the Electoral Act 2022. This claim is incorrect.
“What the commission displayed for claims and objections in our local government area offices nationwide for a period of one week, from Aug. 15 to Aug. 21, is not the entire register of voters.
“It was the list of fresh registrants at the end of the fourth and last quarter of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise covering the period from April 11 to July 31. This has been the practice for several years,” said Yakubu.
“We wish to assure Nigerians that the commission will display the comprehensive register in all the 8,809 wards and 774 local government areas/area councils nationwide as envisaged in Section 19(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022.
“This will integrate fresh voters registered under the last CVR to the existing register of over 84 million voters.
“The date will be announced as soon the commission completes the ongoing Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) to weed out all double/multiple as well as ineligible registrants.
“We appeal to some of our friends in civil society organisations to be guided accordingly,” he said.
