On Monday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) asked Nigerians for assistance in finding mistakes in the voters’ list.
Festus Okoye, National Commissioner of INEC and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, made the announcement on the Channels Television show Politics Today. He acknowledged that the voter registration process had some errors.
He pleaded with Nigerians to assist the commission in finding people on the draught voter list for the 2023 elections who are manifestly underage.
Okoye reacted to social media images that appeared to reveal some people on the voter’s list who are under the age of 18.
He said: “The essence of putting out this is for Nigerians to help the commission further clean up the voters’ register.
“We want people to look at the register and assist the commission to check whether their names have been properly spelt; whether their personal particulars have been properly captured; whether some pictures are not upside down; whether there are still names of deceased persons on the register; whether there are obviously underage persons on the register so that we can correct them.
“We cannot claim, in all honesty, that the register does not have errors. If the lawmakers believe that the register should not have errors or challenges, they won’t have provided in section 19, subsection 1-3 that such a register should be displayed for people to make claims, objections or lay complaints.
“We agree that the register is not perfect; because it is not perfect, that is why we have this display for claims and objections.
“We use our automated biometric identification system to remove multiple and double registrations and then we did what we called manual adjudication to remove obviously underage persons.
“Apparently, there are still obviously underage persons on the voters’ register and we expect Nigerians to take a look at the voters’ register, both the ones we displayed at the various registration centres and LGAs and also on the website, and assist the commission to point out these things so that the commission can further clean up the register.”
