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INEC deletes over 7,000 dead voters from register

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deleted the record of 7,746 deceased voters from the national voter register in Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as of December 2022.

The INEC’s voter education and publicity director, Victoria Etta-Messi, disclosed this on Thursday, January 16.

According to INEC, despite progress in cleaning the register, persistent challenges remained during its 2023 post-general election review in December 2024.

Etta-Messi said inadequate official death records made it difficult for the commission to remove deceased voters’ details.

“Problems with official death records continue to make it very difficult for INEC to remove deceased registrants,the commission stated.

It added that enhanced collaboration with agencies like the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) was critical to address the problem.

The INEC said it used a system called the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) to identify and remove fake or duplicate voter registrations, and it turned out that a whopping 2.7 million registrations were invalid – that’s about 22.6 per cent of all new registrants.

The commission said it was committed to making the voter registration process more secure and reliable.

The INEC voter register has always been viewed with suspicion. A few months before the 2023 general election, the electoral body reacted to allegations that underaged persons were discovered in the register.

This followed INEC’s announcement that it had displayed the register across polling units in the country and on its website.

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However, Nigerians expressed concerns over the alarming numbers of underage voters found in the register.



While some wondered how the names got into the register, some called on INEC to carry out due diligence in ridding the register of ineligible voters to restore public confidence before the 2023 polls.

In May 2023, the House of Representatives asked INEC to develop a mechanism to clean up its voter register of dead and fictitious names.




     

     

    The lawmakers tasked the electoral body to design a software application where families, who lost their loved ones could report the demise of a particular Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) number so that it could be duly deleted from the commission’s register, polling unit, and ward.

    They further asked INEC to include voter verification during continuous voter registration (CVR) to identify those on the register who were still alive and fish out those with fake registration.

    The House reached these resolutions when it adopted a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Leke Abejide, who claimed that INEC’s register was full of millions of people who were dead or non-existent.

    Abejide said even his deceased father, who passed on long ago, still had his name displayed on the board (voter’s register) during the general election.

    Bankole Abe

    A reporter with the ICIR
    A Journalist with a niche for quality and a promoter of good governance

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