INEC: Preliminary number of registered voters stands at 93.5m

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the preliminary number of registered voters in Nigeria is 93 million.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, said this on Wednesday at the third quarterly meeting with political parties.

Following the suspension of continuous voter registration (CVR) on July 31, the number of persons who completed their registration was announced to be 12,298,944.

Yakubu, however, said after cleaning up the voter data using the automated biometric identification system (ABIS), a total of 2,780,756 (22.6 percent) were identified as ineligible registrants and invalidated from the record.

He said the remaining 9,518,188 new voters have been added to the existing register of 84,004,084 voters, adding that the “preliminary” register of voters in Nigeria now stands at 93,522,272.

“It is preliminary because section 19(1) and (2) of the electoral act 2022 requires the commission to display the hard copies of the register of voters for each registration area (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 a general election,” he said.

“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 display of the physical register will take place at the designated centers from Saturday, 12th to Friday, 25th November 2022. Further details, including the procedure for filing claims and objections, will be released by the commission next week. I would like to appeal to all Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the display to scrutinize the list and help us to clean it up further so that the final register of voters for the 2023 general election can be compiled and published.”

The INEC chairman said the commission is working hard to complete the printing of remaining permanent voter cards (PVCs).

“In the coming days, we will also inform Nigerians of the detailed plan to ensure a seamless collection of the PVCs. We are aware that Nigerians expect an improvement in the procedure for PVC collection. Since the end of the CVR in July this year, we have been working to ensure that citizens have a pleasant experience when they come to collect their cards,” he said.