2023: 93.5m to vote next year as Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Rivers voters top INEC register, Ekiti least

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that 93,522,272 eligible voters that will participate in the 2023 general election.

The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this on Wednesday at a quarterly meeting of the commission with political parties in Abuja.

Analysis of the preliminary register reveals that Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Rivers, Katsina and Oyo states have the highest number of registered voters while Ekiti State least registered voters.

This comprises existing 84,004,084 registered voters and 9,518,188 new registrants.

According to the commission, the display of the physical register will take place at designated centres from Saturday, November 12 to Friday, November 25, 2022.

INEC explained that at the end of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), 12,298,944 Nigerians completed the exercise but a total of 2,780,756, representing 22.6 per cent, were invalidated.

INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu announced these at a quarterly meeting of the commission with political parties in Abuja.

The INEC chairman stated that “7.2 million new voters, or 76.5 per cent, are young people between 18 and 34 years, while there is a slightly higher number of females (4.8 million, or 50.82 per cent) than males (4.6 million or 49.18 per cent) voters.

“In terms of occupation, 3.8 million (40.8 per cent) are students. Hard copies giving the full details of the distribution of the new voters are included in your folders for this meeting. The soft copy has already been uploaded to the commission’s website and social media platforms.”

The INEC chairman explained that 23 registration officers who participated in the just-concluded CVR were indicted of misconduct.

“As a result, the commission has so far identified 23 Registration Officers involved in this unethical conduct and disciplinary action has commenced. We shall continue to protect the integrity of our voters’ register.

“At the end of the exercise, 12,298,944 Nigerians successfully completed the registration as new voters. All along, we have repeatedly assured Nigerians that our process of cleaning up the register is robust.

“After a rigorous cleaning-up of the data, using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), a total of 2,780,756 (22.6 per cent) were identified as ineligible registrants and invalidated from the record, among them double/multiple registrants, underage persons and outright fake registrations that fail to meet our business rules. Consequently, the number of valid registrations (post-ABIS) is 9,518,188.

“The commission deployed thousands of diligent workers for the CVR and the vast majority of them discharged their duties conscientiously. Unfortunately, a few of them did not. The fictitious registrations were carried out by some of our Registration Officers involved in the field exercise and could easily be traced. Each registration machine is operated using an access code tied to a dedicated e-mail assigned to a staff member.

“There is, therefore, an audit trail that gives the total number of persons registered by each official involved in the registration. In some cases, some of them made as many as 40 attempts or more to register one fake voter. As a result, the commission has so far identified 23 Registration Officers involved in this unethical conduct and disciplinary action has commenced.

“We shall continue to protect the integrity of our voters’ register. It is pivotal to credible elections. It is also a national asset and easily the largest database of citizens in Africa and one of the largest in the world,” Mahmood said.

He added: “The 9,518,188 new voters have been added to the existing register of 84,004,084 voters. The Preliminary Register of Voters in Nigeria now stands at 93,522,272. It is preliminary because 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.”

“Accordingly, 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, November 12 to Friday, November 25, 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 scrutinise 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.

“The commission is also 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. In the coming days, we will also inform Nigerians of the detailed plan to ensure a seamless collection of the PVCs.

“We are aware that Nigerians expect an improvement in the procedure for PVC collection. Since the end of the CVR in July this year, we have been working to ensure that citizens have a pleasant experience when they come to collect their cards.

“Beyond voter registration and the compilation of the voters’ register, the Commission has released the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the three off-cycle governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states holding on Saturday, November 11, 2023.”

Newsflash Nigeria understands that voters in the Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Rivers, Katsina and Oyo states constitute 27.68m or 29.59 per cent of the entire registered voters.

According to the preliminary voter register, Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Rivers states lead with 7,075,192; 5,927,565; 4,345,469 and 3,532,990, respectively.

They are followed by Katsina with 3,519,260 and Oyo, with 3,275,045.

Further analysis also revealed that the North-West geopolitical zone, which comprises the seven states of Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara and Jigawa, with a total of 22.27m voters, has the highest number of registered voters.

As of the 2019 elections, the North-West had 20.15m voters. However, the data from INEC revealed that the zone got additional 2.12m voters during the recently-concluded continuous voter registration.

The South-West, which earlier had 16.29m voters as of 2019, now has 17.93m voters, having added a total of 1.64m newly-registered voters.

South-South voters

Following in third place is the South-South zone comprising Akwa-Ibom, Rivers, Cross-River, Bayelsa, Edo and Delta states.

The number of registered voters in the zone has risen from 12.8m to 14.4m.

The North-Central, which is made up of Nasarawa, Kogi, Benue, Niger Kwara, and Plateau now has a total of 13.8m voters while the North- East which consists of Yobe, Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi and Gombe added 1.07m new voters to reach 12.5m.

The South-East, which is the smallest geopolitical zone, and consists of five states — Ebonyi, Enugu, Abia, Anambra and Imo now has a total of 10.9m voters while the Federal Capital Territory increased from 1.3m to 1.5m registered voters.

Lagos maintained its position as the state with the highest number of registered voters, increasing its figure from 6.5m to 7.07m.

Kano State also added 469,818 new voters to increase its number to 5.9m voters.

Kaduna now has 4.3m voters while Rivers state overtook Katsina as the fourth largest state in terms of voters.

While Rivers now has 3.53m voters, Katsina has 3.51m.

Ekiti State remained at the bottom with 986,314 registered voters.

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