CVR: INEC Disqualifies 1.3m Registered Voters Ahead Of 2023

More than 1.3 million Nigerians who participated in the Continuous Voter Registration of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) may not be able to participate in the 2023 general elections.

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja.

Yakubu said out of the 2,523,458 persons who completed their registrations in the first and first quarters of the CVR exercise, 1,390,519 were invalid.

The invalid voters represent about 45% of the total number of persons that registered in the first and second quarters of the CVR exercise and not the entire register of voters.

Mr. Festus Okoye, the INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, clarified this in a text message sent to THE WHISTLER on Wednesday.

“The figure (completed registrations) for the 3rd quarter has not been unveiled while the 4th quarter registration is ongoing. For this period the completed registration stood at 2, 523, 458. The valid stood at 1,390,519. The invalid stood at 1, 126, 359 representing 44.6%.

“This figure for the third quarter has not been released and the 4th quarter is ongoing. At the end, these figures will be added to the already 84, 004,084 registered voters,” said Okoye.

At the press conference in Abuja, the INEC chairman had said “Sadly, it seems that many registrants, either out of ignorance that they do not need to re-register if they had done so before, or a belief that our systems will not detect this infraction, have gone out to register again. This is despite repeated warnings by the Commission against this illegal action. In addition, there are also registrants whose data were incomplete and did not meet our Business Rules for inclusion in the register. Both categories i.e. the failure of ABIS and incomplete data constitute invalid registrations.

“Presently, nearly 45% of completed registrations nationwide are invalid, rising to as high as 60% or more in some States. This infraction happened in all states of the Federation. No State is immune from it. These invalid registrations will not be included in the Register of Voters.

“In our commitment to transparency, the distribution of the registration figures, including the percentages of valid and invalid registrations on a State-by-State basis, will be made available to you at this press conference. The same information will be uploaded to the Commission’s website and social media platforms immediately,” Yakubu said.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to correct a factual error regarding the number of registered voters declared invalid by INEC.