Threats to the 2023 general election deepened on Wednesday with the Independent National Electoral Commission raising fears that over 45 per cent of the total number of registered voters have been found to be invalid as of January 14, 2022.
The commission however said 1,390,519 Permanent Voter Cards are valid.
While describing the situation as challenging, the commission said it would continue to clean up the voters’ register.
The chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said these during a press conference in Abuja where he also raised fears about security challenges on the election.
He said, “We are all concerned about the security challenges. But the environment must be secured for INEC to conduct the election. We are liaising with the security agencies to secure the environment for us to Conduct the 2023 elections.
“While the number of new registrants is very impressive and demonstrates the eagerness of Nigerians to vote in the forthcoming elections, the Commission has a duty to clean up the data to ensure that only eligible Nigerians are registered. As you are aware, the foundation for any credible election rests on the credibility of the Register of Voters. The introduction of the biometric registration of voters in 2011 has helped to sanitise the Register. You may recall that initially, 73,528,040 Nigerians were registered in 2011. Using the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), the Commission was able to remove 4,239,923 invalid registrations. Consequently, the Register of Voters for the 2015 General Election stood at 69,288,117 voters. Subsequently, some 432,173 new voters were added to the Register during the CVR exercises ahead of the off-cycle Governorship elections in five States (Bayelsa, Kogi, Edo, Ondo and Anambra) from late 2015 to early 2017, bringing the total number of registered voters in Nigeria to 69,720,350.
“You may also recall that preparatory to the 2019 General Election, the Commission, for the first time, embarked on a nationwide CVR exercise on a continuous basis as provided by law. From 27th April 2017 to 31st August 2018, 15,317,872 new voters were registered. Out of this figure, 1,034,141 ineligible registrants were detected and removed from the register to arrive at the figure of 84,004,084 voters for that election.
“Unfortunately, the troubling issue of invalid registration still persists which we detected while cleaning up the latest registration data. As against the AFIS used in previous exercises, the Commission introduced the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) which is a more comprehensive and robust system, involving not just fingerprint identification but also the facial biometric recognition.
“Sadly, it seems that many registrants, either out of ignorance that they do not need to re-register if they had done so before, or a belief that our systems will not detect this infraction, have gone out to register again. This is despite repeated warnings by the Commission against this illegal action. In addition, there are also registrants whose data were incomplete and did not meet our Business Rules for inclusion in the register. Both categories i.e. the failure of ABIS and incomplete data constitute invalid registrations.
“Presently, nearly 45% of completed registrations nationwide are invalid, rising to as high as 60% or more in some States. This infraction happened in all States of the Federation. No State is immune from it. These invalid registrations will not be included in the Register of Voters.
“In our commitment to transparency, the distribution of the registration figures, including the percentages of valid and invalid registrations on State-by-State basis, will be made available to you at this press conference. The same information will be uploaded to the Commission’s website and social media platforms immediately.
“This development is worrisome because of the time and resources expended in handling these cases. Even more disturbing are the strong indications that some of our staff may be complicit in facilitating these infractions, notwithstanding stern warnings. Consequently, the Commission is reviewing reports on such staff and has commenced a detailed investigation which may include the prosecution of those found culpable. Specific registrants associated with these infractions by our staff may also face prosecution in line with Sections 22 and 23 of the Electoral Act 2022.”
