No fewer than 300, 000 Nigerians have been disenfranchised ahead of the 2019 as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it had removed their names from the voter register last week.
Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman said the names were removed from the voter register after Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) was carried out on the biometry data of registered voters.
Yakubu stated this Monday when he received a delegation of ECOWAS Pre-Election Fact Finding Mission, led by the Chairman of Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission, Mohamed Conteh, at the Commission headquarters in Abuja.
He disclosed that INEC has started cleaning up voter the register while it will be displaying the voter register at all polling units across the nation between November 6 and 12(Tuesday – Monday) for claims and objections and urged Nigerians to make use of the opportunity to assist the Commission to identify names of ineligible voters for further clean-up.
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Yakubu stressed that, “for the registered voters, we have been cleaning up on our own, using the AFIS. As at last week, before I traveled, I was told that over 300,000 names were dropped after the automatic fingerprints identification system.
“But the cleaning of the voter register is not the sole responsibility of the commission; it is also the responsibility of every Nigerian. That is why the law says that we should display the register for a period of six days between Nov. 6 and Nov. 12. We will display the voter register in 120, 000 polling units nationwide.
” I will like to use this opportunity to appeal to the citizens to check when we display the register, so that they can draw the attention of the commission to the prevalence of any ineligible voter on the register so that we can further clean up the register”, he said.
The INEC Chairman who told the delegation that the Commission was prepared for the 2019 general elections said, “we have finished the strategic planning; we have finished our strategic programme of action; and we have completed the election project plan. We have issued the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2019 general elections”.
He announced that INEC would by Friday or Saturday this week release statistics of political parties that nominated candidates for governorship elections to be conducted in 29 states and the State Houses of Assembly in all states of the Federation.
Earlier in his speech, leader of the ECOWAS Mission, Conteh said they were in Nigeria to gather relevant information and see how prepared INEC was for the general elections and where they can offer assistance.
He said, “as you are aware that it is common before we start any election, organisations such as ECOWAS come and see the condition under which election is to be conducted and gather information in respect of the elections.
“More importantly, meet with you as a major stakeholder, as Election Management Body that is responsible for conduct of election to discuss with you and see how prepared you are for the election” he stated.
Conteh thanked ECOWAS, ECONEC and the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the assistant rendered to Serial Leone during its elections conducted in April.
James Kwen, Abuja
