Publish details of invalid voter registration, YIAGA tells INEC

YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish the details of voter registration declared invalid.

INEC had, in October 2022, said it removed 2.7 million registrants from its database over invalid registration.

Speaking on Friday at a media roundtable to discuss the 2023 elections, Samson Itodo, YIAGA’s executive director, said INEC ought to have contacted those who were invalidated in order to save them the stress of queuing to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs).

“INEC has invalidated over two million records,” Itodo said.

“Now, these two million record of people are in a list and INEC didn’t publish the list of these people, and so these people whose records have been invalidated are not aware.

“So, they show up to the collection centres only to be told that their PVCs are not ready and they’ve been invalidated, when INEC should have published the list of invalidated records so people know.

“INEC has the contact details of these persons and should contact these people so they don’t show up at the collection centres thinking their PVCs are there.”

He also urged the commission to work towards ensuring the prompt availability of PVCs well before the elections.

“Secondly, is the unprinted PVCs — that is people whose records have not been invalidated, but they show up and INEC informs that their PVCs are not ready and they are asked to come back in two weeks,” he said.

“We hope that at the end of these two weeks, their PVCs will be ready for the people because people should get their PVCs to cast their vote.

“Based on our observation, the extension of the PVC collection is indeed a welcome development but looking at all these logistics and issues, if by the 29th, sufficient PVCs have not been collected, then INEC should consider a further extension of the PVC collection to enable people to collect their PVCs because Nigerians are determined to vote in the elections.”

The executive director also said YIAGA would deploy 3,014 observers across the 774 LGAs, and 48 mobile citizen observers for the elections.