Help Us Point Out Underaged Persons on Voters' Register - INEC Plead To Nigerians
Category: Nigeria News
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has called on Nigerians to
help the electoral body in cleaning up the voters’ register.
INEC’s
National Commissioner Festus Okoye made the plea on Monday following reports
that some under aged persons were included in the voters’ register ahead of the
2023 general election.
“We cannot claim in all honesty that the
register does not have errors. If the lawmakers believe that a register should
not have errors or challenges, they would not have provided in Section 19
Subsection 3 that 1-3 that such a register should be displayed for people to
make claims, objections, and also lay complaints,” he said on Channels
Television’s Politics Today on Monday.
READ: INEC Begins Distribution Of PVCs, Display Of Voters Register
“We agree that the register is
not perfect and that is why we have these displayed for claims and objections.
The lawmakers believe that the Commission can clean up the voters’ register to
an extent and we used our automated biometric identification system to remove
multiple and double registrants and then we also did what we call manual
adjudication to remove obviously underaged persons.
“Obviously,
there are under-age persons on the voters’ register and we expect Nigerians to
take a look at it – both the ones we displayed at the various registration
centres and local government and also the one on the website – and assist the
Commission to point out these things so that the Commission can further clean up
the register.
“So, all these things people are pointing out is the
essence of the display and we want to encourage Nigerians to take a critical
look at the register, point out some of these persons who are not eligible to be
on it and we would definitely do the needful.”
READ: INEC Proposes January 2023 To Publish Voter Register
He, however, admitted
that the cleanup of the register is a continuous process, saying some staff of
the Commission are “complicit” in the registration of under aged people and
other irregularities in the voters’ register.
No comments