INEC gives reasons why is unable to extend voter registration

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has provided an explanation for why it is not possible to expand the voter registration drive nationwide.

Akwa Ibom State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Mike Igini who spoke during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday August 5, said extending the voter registration exercise will hamper its preparations for the 2023 general elections.

Igini said;

“Now that we have officially suspended the CVR process, we have to consolidate; aggregate the data and thereafter run the biometric accreditation system to weed out all multiple registrants.

“Thereafter, Section 19 [Electoral Act 2022] says we must do a one-week display of the voter register for the commission to accept claims; objections as it relates to either omitted names or names of individuals that ought not to be on that register as identified by people in the area.

“And how do you do that? You have to produce the preliminary register of voters for this purpose which means they have to be millions of these would-be voters. That will be posted in the entire wards and local governments of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and that is a huge work.”

Also pointing out that the electoral umpire will produce and distribute the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to the new registrants, Igini added that Section 17 of the Electoral Act only mandates the Commission to stop voter registration less than and not exactly 90 days to the election.

Aside from this, he said, “it is not only this that INEC will be doing”. Igini stated that Nigerians should rather be concerned about voter turnout in the next election despite the outcry that greeted the suspension of the registration.

“What gives spice to the practice of democracy is mass participation,” the INEC official said. The INEC REC expressed satisfaction with the recent wave of enthusiasm by Nigerians in the electoral process, likening it to what happened in the country in the lead-up to the 1993 poll.