Politics
Anthony Isibor
THE Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Tuesday said that the claim that it failed to display the voters’ register as provided by Section 19(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 was incorrect.
Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman, INEC, made the clarification at the validation of the Revised Framework and Regulations for Voting by Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in Abuja, on Tuesday, September 6, 2022.
According to him, the clarification became necessary following a statement attributed to a section of the civil society organizations at a media briefing on Monday.
He noted that what the Commission displayed for claims and objections in our Local Government Area offices nationwide for a period of one week, from 15th – 21st August 2022, was not the entire register of voters, but the list of fresh registrants at the end of the Fourth and last quarter of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise covering the period from 11th April – 31st July 2022.
“This has been the practice for several years. Earlier, the Commission had displayed the register three times: 24th – 30th September 2021 (First Quarter), 24th – 30th December 2021 (Second Quarter) and 26th March – 1st April 2022 (Third Quarter).
“A comprehensive schedule of the CVR exercise and the display of the register was shared with stakeholders at our quarterly meeting just before the inception of the exercise in June last year,” he said.
He assured 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, and thanked all stakeholders for their continuous encouragement and support for the commission.
“This will integrate fresh voters registered under the last CVR exercise 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 to be guided accordingly,” he added.
A.I
Tags: Independent National Electoral Commission Professor Mahmood Yakubu
