2023: INEC Accredits 93.5m Voters, Sanctions 23 Officials For Multiple Registrations

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has cleared 93.5 million Nigerians to vote in the 2023 general elections.

The figure was announced by INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who said 12.29 million Nigerians successfully completed their registrations as new voters in the just-concluded Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).

He spoke yesterday in Abuja during the third quarterly meeting with political parties.

Yakubu said after a rigorous clean-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System ABIS, over 2.78 million were identified and removed as ineligible registrants.

Consequently, he said the commission identified 23 of its registration officers for severe sanctions having attempted to engage in multiple registrations of Nigerians.

The INEC helmsman disclosures came as the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) passed a vote of confidence on him for his innovations to reshape the electoral process.

At the event, political parties in the country, hailed the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in the recently concluded elections in the country and for next year’s general election.

Commenting on BVAS and IReV, the INEC chairman stated that the decision to deploy the duo for the forthcoming polls was cast in stone.

He said INEC last week commenced the training of master trainers on election technology to ensure a seamless process.

Yakubu said from today, the commission would commence the same training at zonal levels and subsequently train all its ad hoc staff for the 176,846 polling units nationwide.

He reaffirmed that there was no going back on the deployment of BVAS for voter accreditation.

Yakubu said at the end of the CVR exercise recently, 12,298,944 Nigerians successfully completed the registration as new voters and that after a rigorous cleaning-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System ABIS, a total of 2,780,756 (22.6 per cent) were identified as ineligible registrants and invalidated from the record.

He said, “Among those whose registrations were invalidated were double/multiple registrants, underaged persons, and outrightly fake registrations that failed to meet INEC’s 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 per cent are young people between 18-34 years while there is a slightly higher number of females (4.8 million or 50.82 per cent) than males (4.6 million or 49.18 per cent) voters. In terms of occupation, 3.8 million (40.8 per cent) are students.”

Yakubu noted that hard copies giving the full details of the distribution of the new voters were included in the folders of stakeholders attending the meeting.

For staff members who engaged in misconduct during the recent CVR, he said the Commission has so far identified 23 Registration Officers involved in this unethical conduct, and disciplinary action has commenced.

He said the commission would continue to protect the integrity of our voters’ register.