The House of Representatives on Thursday asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to develop a mechanism to clean up its system — voter’s register — of dead and fictitious registered voters.
The House also urged INEC to design a software application where families who lost their loved ones can report the demise of a
particular Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) number so that it can be duly deleted from the commission’s
register, polling unit, and ward.
It further asked to include voter verification during Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) to identify those on the register who are still alive as well as fish out those with fake registration.
The House reached these resolutions when it adopted a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Leke Abejide from Kogi state at plenary.
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Moving to the motion, Abejide said INEC’s register is full of
millions of people who are dead and non-existent persons.
The lawmaker noted that in the last general election, it was glaring and crystal clear that people that were long dead had their names still displayed in the voters’ register.
According to Abejide, even his own deceased father who passed on long ago still has his name displayed on the board (voter’s register).
He noted that: “Apart from dead voters there are millions of fictitious voters who do not exist anywhere on this planet earth but have their names on INEC registered of voters.
“It is believed that this came to being as a result of double
or multiple registration by Nigerians who had or have intention of rigging elections but the advent of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) these faceless individuals can no longer vote anymore.
While adopting the motion, the House urged INEC to conduct vigorous public enlightenment for all Nigerians to be much aware of what makes the voters register bogus which is the numbers of dead and fictitious persons.
The lawmakers also urged that whoever does not vote in two election cycles back to back be deleted from INEC register as non-existing human beings, and mandated the Committee on Electoral Matters to ensure compliances.
