INEC removes ‘over 300,000’ names from voter register

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has removed over 300,000 names from its voter register in preparation for 2019 elections.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, disclosed this when he received a delegation of ECOWAS pre-election fact finding mission in Abuja on Monday.

According to NAN, the delegation was led by Mohamed Conteh, chairman of Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission.

Yakubu said the names were removed from the register after the automated fingerprint identification system was carried out on the biometrics data of registered voters.

He said the commission had started the clean-up of the register, adding that it would display register of voters nationwide for claims and objections between November 6 and November 12.

The INEC chairman urged Nigerians to make use of the opportunity to assist the commission to identify names of ineligible voters for further clean-up.

“For the registered voters, we have been cleaning up on our own, using the AFIS. As at last week, before I travelled, I was told that over 300,000 names were dropped by the automatic fingerprints identification system,” he said.

“But the cleaning of the voter register is not the sole responsibility of the commission; it is also the responsibility of every Nigerian.

“That is why the law says that we should display the register for a period of six days between Nov. 6 and Nov. 12. We will display the voter register in 120, 000 polling units nationwide.

“I will like to use this opportunity to appeal to the citizens to check when we display the register so that they can draw the attention of the commission to the prevalence of any ineligible voter on the register so that we can further clean up the register.”

Yakubu told the mission that INEC was well prepared for the 2019 elections.

“We have finished the strategic planning; we have finished our strategic programme of action, and we have completed the election project plan. We have issued the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2019 general elections.”