The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it would conduct a thorough clean-up of the country’s register of voters with a view to further sanitising and strengthening the integrity of the register.
The INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, said this during the commission’s quarterly consultative meeting with Civil Society Organisations on Wednesday in Abuja.
Amupitan said a credible register of voters remained the bedrock of free, fair and transparent elections, adding that “no electoral process can command public confidence without trust in the integrity of its voters’ register”.
He said Nigeria’s national register, first compiled ahead of the 2011 General Election, had since been continuously updated and deployed in the General Elections of 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023, as well as in several off-cycle governorship and by-elections.
Amupitan said the country’s voter register as at 2023 general election stood at 93,469,008, adding that duplicate registrations, under-age registration, registration by non-citizens, deceased voters and incomplete or inaccurate records are still very much present.
He said such anomalies undermine public confidence in the electoral process, adding that “accordingly, the Commission will be embarking on a nationwide Voter Revalidation ahead of the 2027 General Election.
“This is very important for us, because most of the time we talk of voters’ apathy.
“When we conducted Anambra governorship elections there were over 2.8 million registered voters.
“As much as we tried to mobilise, the total number of voters was less than 600,000, and that was about 20 per cent of the registered voters.
“So the general outcry is, oh, voters did not turn up. But sometimes, when we’re looking at the register of voters, for example in Anambra state, we discovered names of prominent politicians in Nigeria that have died; their names are still of the register.
“This, in a way, is an indictment on the register itself.
“So we’re going to clean up and ensure that we don’t continue to expect dead people to come from their graves and come and vote on the day of election.
“We don’t also expect their posts to come from such elections,” he said.
