Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) today spoke at Chatham House in London, the famous independent policy institute trusted for debate and dialogue.
Yakubu spoke on the theme ‘Nigeria 2023 elections: preparations and priorities for electoral integrity and inclusion’.
Here are the 10 quotes from his speech
“ 93.4 million voters are expected to elect their representatives in 1491 constituencies spread across 176, 846 polling units”
“ Presidential election and election to the two houses of assembly, senate and the house of representatives will hold on Saturday February 25 2023, state election will hold on Saturday March 11 2023 to elect 28 governors out of 36 governors and 993 members of state assembly”
“This informed the early choice of a new voters accreditation technology using an electronic device called bimodal voter accreditation system, we have tested it in several by-election and off-cycle governorship election, in addition to make polling unit election results available for public viewing … the INEC result viewing portal I-RAVE is a dedicated web portal for the public viewing of polling unit result as soon as they are finalised on election day”
“2023 election project was planned over 18 months prior to the date set for the election which gave us a good start”
“ A new electoral act was signed into law on February 25 2022, exactly one year ahead of the general election, giving time for both the commission and all stakeholders to fully equip themselves to the challenges in their responsibilities and functions”
Read also: No plans to postpone 2023 elections – INEC
“You can’t have a credible election without credible registration of voters… in one year June 21 2021 -July 31, 12.2 million new voters were registered of which 9.5 million were validated”
“We devolved the collection of PVC’s to 8,809 wards, and also extended the overall collection of PVC till January 29, 2023, 37 million registered voters, 39.5% are young Nigerians between the ages of 18- 24… 2023 election is the election of young people because they have the numbers”
“We launched a data dashboard that captures all registered voters with disability in all polling unit nationwide aggregated by type of disability”
“On diaspora voting, the commission only acts in accordance with the Electoral Legal framework, which remains the main reason we cannot implement diaspora voting for now.”
“Our commitment remains only to Nigerians and not any political party or any candidates, our loyalty is to Nigeria and the Nigerian people, only the votes they cast will determine who becomes what, it’s in their hands, we cherish our institutional independence and intergrity of the commission.”
