By Godfrey AKON
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said it has uncovered and deleted over 1.3 million multiple registrations in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, exercise across the country.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday.
Yakubu said a total of 106,270 registrations were invalidated in Ekiti and Osun states where elections are due to hold on June 18 and July 16, 2022 respectively, adding that 17,640 registrations were cancelled in Ekiti while 88,630 registrations were cancelled in Osun.
The INEC chairman also disclosed that the commission has printed 1,390,519 Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, for people who carried out genuine registration.
He noted that INEC also printed 464,340 PVCs for verified applicants for transfer or replacement of cards.
“Consequently, a total of 1,854,859 PVCs are now ready. They will be delivered to our State offices across the country over the Easter holiday.
“They will be available for collection by the actual owners in person immediately after the holiday. No PVC will be collected by proxy. I must reiterate that the available cards only cover those who registered in the First and Second Quarters of the exercise.
“The Commission wishes to assure those who registered between January and March 2022 as well as those who are doing so right now that their PVCs will be ready for collection long before the 2023 General Election,” he said.
According to him, from June 28, 2021 and Dec. 20, 2021 millions of Nigerians started their registration online and thereafter scheduled appointments to complete the process physically.
“Millions more visited our State and Local Government offices to register in person without the option of going through the online procedure. For the pre-registration option, 1,014,382 registrants completed the process while 1,509,076 Nigerians registered in-person at our designated registration centres nationwide.
“Furthermore, 671,106 Nigerians submitted requests to update their records, transfer their registration from where they are currently registered to other locations or the replacement of their lost or damaged PVCs,” he said.
He noted that while the number of new registrants was very impressive and demonstrated the eagerness of Nigerians to vote in the forthcoming elections, the commission had 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,” he said.
