YIAGA charges INEC to make public details of invalid voter registration

Alfred Williams January 22, 2023 0

 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been asked by YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), to publicise the details of voter registrations that have been ruled invalid.

INEC said in October 2022 that it had removed 2.7 million people from its database because they had registered incorrectly.

Samson Itodo, the executive director of YIAGA, talked about the 2023 elections at a media roundtable on Friday. He said that INEC should have contacted those whose registrations were invalidated so they wouldn’t have to wait in line to get their permanent voter cards (PVCs).

Itodo said that INEC had thrown out more than two million records.

“Now, these two million records of people are on a list, and INEC didn’t publish the list of these people, so these people whose records have been invalidated are not aware.

“So, they show up to the collection centres only to be told that their PVCs are not ready and they’ve been invalidated, when INEC should have published the list of invalidated records, so people know.

“INEC has the contact details of these persons and should contact these people so they don’t show up at the collection centres thinking their PVCs are there.”

He also asked the commission to do what it could to ensure that PVCs would be easy to get before the elections.

“Secondly, is the unprinted PVCs — that is people whose records have not been invalidated, but they show up and INEC informs that their PVCs are not ready and they are asked to come back in two weeks,” he said.

“We hope that their PVCs will be ready for the people at the end of these two weeks because people should get their PVCs to cast their vote.

“Based on our observation, the extension of the PVC collection is indeed a welcome development but looking at all these logistics and issues, if by the 29th, sufficient PVCs have not been collected, then INEC should consider a further extension of the PVC collection to enable people to collect their PVCs because Nigerians are determined to vote in the elections.”

The YIAGA executive director also stated that 3,014 observers would be sent out to all 774 LGAs and 48 mobile citizen observers.

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