The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it will be displaying physical register of eligible voters for the 2023 general election from November 2022 and assured Nigerians that there is no going back on its usage of modern technology for the 2023 general elections.
The Chairman of the commission, Professor Yakubu Mohamoud made this known at the quarterly consultative meeting with political parties in the Commission’s head office in Abuja.
According to Prof Yakubu, the critical foundation for credible election is the voters’ register and the Commission has succeeded in cleaning up of the Register with the number of eligible voters in Nigeria now standing at 93,522,272. And would be displayed in November, 2022.
The Chairman noted that Section 19(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act 2022 requires the Commission to display the hard copies of the register of voters for each Registration Area (Ward) and Local Government Area (and simultaneously publish the entire register on the Commission’s website) for a period of two weeks for scrutiny, claims and objections by citizens not later than 90 days to a General Election.
“In the next few days, the Commission will print 9,352,228 pages of the register. The hard copy will be displayed for each of the 8,809 Registration Areas (Wards) and 774 Local Government Areas nationwide while the entire register will be published on our website for claims and objections as required by law”.
“The display of the physical register will take place at the designated centers from Saturday 12th – Friday 25th November 2022. Further details, including the procedure for filing claims and objections, will be released by the Commission next week. I would like to appeal to all Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the display to scrutinize the list and help us to clean it up further so that the final register of voters for the 2023 General Election can be compiled and published”, he said.
On the issue of deployment of technology, he said that, “let me once again reassure Nigerians that there is no going back on the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for voter accreditation. There is no going back on the transmission of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in real-time on Election Day. There will be no Incident Form that enables ineligible persons to vote using other people’s Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) during elections. We are committed to ensuring that the 2023 General Election is transparent and credible, reflecting the will of the Nigerian people by using modern technologies”.
The chairman also noted that the Commission is working hard to ensure the completion of printing of remaining PVCs for new voters as well as those that applied to transfer or the replacement of their lost or damaged cards.
