INEC removes over 300,000 irregular voters from Electoral Register

The Independent National Electoral Commission has revealed it has cleared the voter register off over 300,000 irregular registrations.

The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, revealed this while receiving the ECOWAS pre-election fact-finding team in Abuja on Monday.

Yakubu said, “For the registered voters, we have been cleaning up on our own with the help of the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System. As of last week before I travelled, I was told that over 300,000 names were dropped after the fingerprint system was used.

Yakubu also said INEC will on Tuesday (today) publish the voter register across the 120,000 polling units across the nation.

He said, “Between November 6 and November 12, we shall display the register of voters nationwide for claims and objections.”

He however urged members of the public to assist the commission in purging the register of ineligible voters such as illegal aliens and underage voters.

“But cleaning up the register is not just the responsibility of the commission but the responsibility of every Nigerian and that is why the law says we should display the register for claims and objections which will be done between November 6 and 12 in the 120,000 polling units nationwide.

“And I will like to seize this opportunity to appeal to citizens to check when we display the register so that they can draw the attention of the commission to the prevalence of any ineligible persons so that we can further clean up the register.”

The INEC boss also reiterated the commission’s resolve to abide by its election timetable for the 2019 general elections.

Yakubu added, “We will conduct elections into 1,558 constituencies in 2019 made up of one Presidential constituency, 109 senatorial districts, 360 federal constituencies, 29 governorship elections, 991 state constituencies and 68 constituencies for the FCT for the area councils, the chairmen and councillors making a total of 1, 558 constituencies.”