The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it is making preparations for about 95 million voters for 1,520 seats in the 2023 general election even it promised to deliver free and credible elections.
The Commission also said that voting will take place in 176,846 locations called polling units during the period while it will make use of about 1.4m ad hoc staff.
The INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, made this known at a forum with members of the Nigeria Guild of Editors in Lagos on Friday, noting that the Commission already had 84 million voters now.
He said, “For the 2023 general elections INEC is making preparations for approximately 95 million voters. We have 84 million voters now, but we have not updated the register. We are still cleaning up the data. We have registered 12 million new voters. But, none of the fresh registrants has been added to the register.
“A few days ago, some people said they discovered so many fictitious names on the register. When I heard that I asked myself: ‘Which register?’ We have not even compiled it. We are cleaning up the data; so, how come that someone already knows the register, which is supposed to be compiled by the commission? It is a very serious matter for us because it touches at the heart of credible elections.
“So, some of the people, out of mischief, are talking about what they don’t know. But let me assure Nigerians that no name from the recent Continuous Voter Registration has been added to the register of voters. The law requires us to clean up the data, which we are doing. Thereafter, Section 19, subsection 1 of the Electoral Act says we should throw the register open for Nigerians for claims and objections so that the citizens can also help the commission to clean the register further.
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“This will be done for at least one week in all the 8,809 wards in the 774 local councils in the country. We haven’t done so yet, but we will do that so that Nigerians will have the opportunity to look at the new registrants before we add them to the new register. So, there is no new register as such; we are still in the process of cleaning up.”
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Speaking on the collection of Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC), Yakubu noted that there had been a challenge with the collection of PVCs, adding that the commission had a meeting with all its resident electoral commissioners and administrative secretaries in Lagos in the week to map out strategies on how to ensure a hitch-free distribution of the PVCs.
“We really want to make it a pleasant experience for citizens. For the new registration exercise, we collected data, including email addresses and telephone numbers for those that have, including those in rural areas. We will reach them either by means of text messages, emails or voice calls to tell them the specific locations where they can pick up their cards.
“We will also activate the portal for the collection of the PVCs. So, those who are savvy can click and know where to collect their PVCs. We are ready to make it a pleasant experience for the citizens,” he said.
The INEC boss also assured Nigerians that the 2023 election will be free, fair, credible, and verifiable. Yakubu said that the commission has succeeded in getting rid of the incident forms and deployed technology to prevent rigging.
He explained that the commission has also expanded the polling units which he said were last reviewed in1996.
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