INEC SAYS PRELIMINARY REGISTERED VOTERS ARE 93.5MILLION 

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu has revealed that the preliminary number of registered voters in Nigeria is 93 522 272 million.

Speaking on wednesday at the third quarterly meeting with political parties, he said that the released figure is an addition of previous register of 84,004,084million and 9,518,188million new registrants of the continuous voter registration (CVR) which ended on July 31.

He explained that out of the new 12,298,944million registration, 2,780,756million (22.6percent) were identified as ineligible registrants and cleaned from the voter data using the automated biometric identification system (ABIS).

He noted that the released figure is preliminary because section 19(1) and (2) of the electoral act 2022 requires the commission to display hard copies of the register of voters for each registration 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 the general election.

“Accordingly, in the next few days, the commission will print 9,352,228 pages of the register. The hard copy will 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 INEC boss stated that display of the physical register will take place at the designated centers from Saturday, 12th to Friday, 25th November 2022 while further details, including the procedure for filing claims and objections, will be released by the commission next week.

He appealled to all Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the display to scrutinize the list and help the commission to clean it up further so that the final register of voters for the 2023 general election can be compiled and published.

He said that the commission is working to ensure the completion of printing of the PVCs of new voters and for those who applied for transfer or replacement of their lost or damaged cards adding that in the coming days, citizens will be informed on detailed plan to ensure seamless collection of their PVCs.

He urged leaders of political parties to be available for further meetings and discussions on political rallies and issues of campaign finance including the limit set by the commission on campaign expenses.