INEC: Why comprehensive voters’ list for 2023 polls is yet to be published

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is working towards publishing a comprehensive list of registered voters in Nigeria.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, said this on Tuesday at a stakeholders’ validation meeting on the 2022 revised framework and regulations for voting by internally displaced persons (IDPs), held in Abuja.

The commission had, in August, published a “preliminary” register of voters in its LGA offices.

Speaking on Tuesday, Yakubu said the commission has been accused of not being willing to display the comprehensive 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 August 15 to August 21 — was not the entire register of voters,” he said.

“It was the list of fresh registrants at the end of the fourth and last quarter of the continuous voter registration exercise, covering the period from April 11 to July 31.

“This has been the practice for several years.

“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 as 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.”

Meanwhile, according to the timetable of activities for the 2023 general election published by the commission, the publication of the official register of voters is to take place on January 12, 2023.