There are indications that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) may not meet its target of having 20 million Nigerians registered in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) ahead of the 2023 general election.
This is as only over a million prospective voters have so far carried out online pre-registration in 1 out of the 12 months which the exercise is to last (28th June 2021 – 30th June 2022).
INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu had in April said, while 14. 2 million voters were registered during the 2017 – 2018 CVR, the Commission is projecting to register between 16 and 20 million voters in the 2021-2022 exercise.
This target was recently confirmed by Festus Okoye, INEC national commissioner/chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee who told one of our Correspondents that; “the Commission is targeting at least 20,000,000 new registrants”.
But as of Monday morning, a month after INEC commenced online pre-registration of voters, the number of new registrants had only reached 1,006,661.
Read also: Over 1m Nigerians register online for voters card INEC
If the number does not increase even with the commencement of the physical or in-person registration, only 12.079 million out of the 20 million targets would be met at the end of the 12 months exercise.
INEC on Monday began the physical or in-person registration at its 811 State and Local Government Area offices nationwide.
The Commission in a statement by Okoye advised Nigerians who pre-registered online to complete their registration at those centres based on scheduled appointments.
The INEC chief spokesperson also said other Nigerians who prefer to register physically/in-person can now do so at those centres.
“Both online pre-registration and physical/in-person registration will continue simultaneously until the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise on 30th June 2022 to enable the Commission to clean up the data and compile the voters’ register for the 2023 General Election.
“The right to vote begins with the registration of voters. Thus, as we enter the next phase of the CVR exercise, we once again appeal to all citizens who wish to register to approach any of the Commission’s State or Local Government Area offices nationwide to do so.
“Once again, we wish to remind citizens that the ongoing registration does not include those already registered as voters. The current exercise is only open to Nigerians who are 18 years and above who have not registered before. It is an offence under the Electoral Act for any citizen to register more than once”, the statement read.
