The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC has uncovered 23 Registration Officers involved in an unethical conduct by making attempts 40 times and more to register one fake voter and disciplinary action has commenced.
The Chairman Independent National Electoral Commission INEC Professor Mahmood Yakubu made this known on Wednesday during the Commission’s quarterly meeting with political parties in Abuja.
INEC Chairman said, the fictitious registrations were carried out by some of these Registration Officers involved in the field exercise and could easily be traced.
He said, the Commission deployed thousands of diligent staff for the CVR exercise and the vast majority of them discharged their duties conscientiously but unfortunately, a few of them did not.
He revealed that, each registration machine is operated using an access code tied to a dedicated e-mail assigned to a staff. There is therefore an audit trail that gives the total number of persons registered by each official involved in the registration exercise.
Prof Yakubu noted that in some case, 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", he said.
The INEC Chairman stated that 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.
He added that accordingly, in the next few days, the Commission will print 9,352,228 pages of the register. The hard copywill 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 25thNovember 2022. Further details, including the procedure for filing claims and objections, will be released by the Commission next week.
He therefore appealed 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 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", he noted.