The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has stated why it is yet to publish the comprehensive list of electorates eligible to participate in the 2023 general election.
Some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) accused the electoral body of flouting the provisions of section 19(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 by not making the comprehensive register public, about five months to the general election.
Responding during a stakeholders’ validation meeting on the 2022 revised framework and regulations for voting by internally displaced persons (IDPs), held in Abuja on Tuesday, Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, explained that the commission was still compiling the comprehensive register.
Mr Yakubu explained that what INEC displayed at its nationwide offices in the month of August was the list of new registrants.
“This claim is incorrect,” the electoral chief said. “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.
“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,” he pleaded.
