THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it will comply with the court ruling that restrained it from ending the ongoing voter registration exercise on June 30.
INEC Commissioner on Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, disclosed this on Tuesday when he was featured on Channels Television.
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The ICIR reported that Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon of the Abuja Federal High Court on Monday granted an interim injunction to restrain INEC from implementing the June 30 deadline for the continuous voter registration (CVR) exercise.
The court granted the order after hearing an exparte motion by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and 185 concerned Nigerians.
Reacting to the development, Okoye said INEC will comply with the ruling.
But he added that the Commission will convince the court on the need to discontinue the exercise.
“The Commission is a constitutional body, and we are under a constitutional obligation to give effect to judgments and orders of properly constituted courts of law, and we are going to give effect to the order made by the Federal High Court.
“The court has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to come back on the 29th day of June and explain its position; we are going to go back to the court on that 29th day of June to explain our position and then allow the rest of the issues to be determined by the court,” he said.
Okoye noted that the CVR exercise had been going on for the past one year and that there were times when the INEC officers would register only one person for a whole day.
He explained, “The continuous voter registration has been ongoing for one year. We started the online registration on the 28th day of June 2021 and then started the physical registration in July 2021 so the online has been going on for one year.
“For each day our registration officers spend registering voters, it also has financial implications. This is not a fresh registration, it is only meant for persons who have not registered before and those who have attained the age of 18.”
He added, “These are the ones that are supposed to engage in this continuous voter registration exercise. Persons who seek to do transfer, whose PVCs have damaged are not obligated to register again.”
