The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has disclosed that 85, 362 persons with disability, PWDs, registered as voters for the 2023 general elections.
The chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, made this known during the presentation of electronic copy of the 93, 469, 008 voter register to leaders of political parties on Wednesday in Abuja.
Yakubu said after the cleaning up of the data from the last Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, from June 2021 to July 2022, where 9,518,188 new voters were added to the exiting 84, 004, 084 voters, the preliminary register voter was 93, 522, 272.
Speaking on the register and the distribution of PWDs, Yakubu said, “The data on disability was not collected for previous registration. However, the cumulative figure of 85,362 persons from the recent CVR indicates that there are 21,150 (24.5 per cent ) persons with Albinism; 13,387 (15.7 per cent ) with physical impediment and 8,103 (9.5 per cent) are blind.”
Others are, learning or cognitive disabilities; 1,719 (2.01per cent ), deafness; 6,159 (7.22 Per cent), physical impediment; 13,387 (15.68 per cent ), downs syndrome; 660 (0.77 per cent), little stature: 2,288 (2.68 per cent), spinal cord injury 779 ( 0.91 percent ).
He said that when the register was presented to Nigerians for claims and objections as required by law, INEC received 53,264 objections from Nigerians to the prevalence of ineligible persons on the register by virtue of age, citizenship or death, which were verified and removed from the register.
“Consequently, the register of voters for the 2023 general election stands at 93,469,008. Of this cumulative figure, 49,054,162 (52.5 per cent) are male, while 44,414,846 (47.5 per cent) are female.
“The distribution by age group shows that 37,060,399 (39.65 per cent ) are youth between the ages of 18 and 34; 33,413,591 (35.75 per cent ) are middle aged persons between the ages of 35 and 49;
“17,700,270 (18.94 per cent ) are elderly voters between the ages of 50 and 69 while 5,294,748 (5.66%) are senior citizens aged 70 and above.
“In terms of occupational distribution, students constitute the largest category with 26,027,481 (27.8%) of all voters, followed by 14,742,554 (15.8 per cent ) farmers/fishermen and 13,006,939 (13.9 per cent) housewives.
Yakubu said that the softcopy of the breakdown and analysis would be uploaded to INEC website and social media platforms shortly.
He reiterated INEC’ commitment to transparent, credible and inclusive 2023 general elections, saying INEC would continue to take every step to protect the sanctity of the votes cast by citizens and to deal with infractions.
