The Independent National Electoral Commission has said it is making preparations for around 95 million voters in next years’ general elections but warns that the increasing level of insecurity in some parts of the country poses a threat to the polls.
The Chairman, INEC, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, said this in Lagos on Friday at a forum with members of the Nigeria Guild of Editors.
He stated, “For the 2023 general elections, INEC is making preparations for approximately 95 million voters. Yes, we have 84 million voters now; we have registered 12 million newly. None of the fresh registrants has been added to the register. We are cleaning up 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.
“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.”
He said despite the challenges, voting would take place in 176,846 locations in the country next year as the commission had recruited 1.4 million ad hoc workers.
Yakubu added, “Any Nigerian, who is in the queue before 2.30pm will have the opportunity to vote, even if it means voting going into the night. Now, doing so requires recruiting, training and deploying staff members that number several times more than the entire Armed Forces of Nigeria. For the 2023 general elections, we will engage at least 1.4 million ad hoc staff members, which is bigger than the size of the Nigerian Armed Forces.
“We are going to deploy this number twice; first on February 25 for the national elections, and on March 11, for the state elections. We are going to manage elections into 1,520 positions in 2023. So, it’s a huge undertaking.”
Despite the challenges, Yakubu promised that the commission would conduct credible polls in 2023, adding, “We have deliberately deployed technology to make rigging very difficult if not impossible. People can sit down and see the result of their polling unit online from the comfort of their homes. What follows subsequently is tallying the result at the various collation centres.
“The most important place during the election is the polling unit; once you protect the integrity of the process at the polling unit, what you need to do is just to protect the processes of collation.”
The INEC boss vowed that the commission would adhere to its schedule of activities for the elections.
