Two days after expressing concerns about the wave of general insecurity sweeping the nation, THE Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has stated its intention to move forward with the holding of the February/March general elections.
On Monday, INEC expressed concern that if pre-election unrest was not halted, it might result in the forced annulment of election results or the outright postponement of voting, which would trigger a constitutional crisis.
INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu said the commission had been strengthened by assurances from Nigeria’s defense, security, and intelligence architecture that it would ensure a favorable environment for the elections while presenting the voter list to the chairmen and secretaries of the country’s 18 registered political parties yesterday in Abuja.
The electoral umpire announced that it has started airlifting critical and non-sensitive materials to states as a result.
Yakubu noted that the Commission has now successfully carried out 11 out of the 14 actions on the timeline and schedule for the polls with only 44 days till the General Election, along with the transmission of the voter registration to political parties.
He claims that other actions are now being implemented in earnest.
In the recent history of the Commission, Yakubu said, there has never been a period when so much forward preparation and implementation has been completed 44 days prior to a General Election.
“Therefore, the Commission is not contemplating any adjustment to the election timetable, let alone the postponement of the General Election”, he declared.
He said, for the avoidance of doubt, the Presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on Saturday 25th February 2023 while Governorship and State Assembly elections will hold two weeks later on Saturday 11th March 2023.
“The repeated assurances by the security agencies for the adequate protection of our personnel, materials and processes also reinforces our determination to proceed. The 2023 General Election will hold as scheduled. Any report to the contrary is not the official position of the Commission.
“As a further affirmation of the Commission’s readiness to conduct the 2023 General Election as scheduled, the final register of voters has been compiled. You would recall that for the 2019 General Election, Nigeria had a voter population of 84,004,084. After the cleaning up of the data from the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise (June 2021 – July 2022), 9,518,188 new voters were added to the previous register resulting in the preliminary register of 93,522,272 which was presented to Nigerians for claims and objections as required by law.”
“At the end of the period for claims and objections by citizens, the Commission received 53,264 objections from Nigerians to the prevalence of ineligible persons on the register by virtue of age, citizenship or death. These names have been verified and removed from the register.
“Consequently, the register of voters for the 2023 General Election stands at 93,469,008. Of this cumulative figure, 49,054,162 (52.5%) are male while 44,414,846 (47.5%) are female. The distribution by age group shows that 37,060,399 (39.65%) are youth between the ages of 18 and 34; 33,413,591 (35.75%) are middle-aged persons between the ages of 35 and 49; 17,700,270 (18.94%) are elderly voters between the ages of 50 and 69 while 5,294,748 (5.66%) are senior citizens aged 70 and above. In terms of occupational distribution, students constitute the largest category with 26,027,481 (27.8%) of all voters, followed by 14,742,554 (15.8%) farmers/Fishermen, and 13,006,939 (13.9%) housewives.
“The data on disability was not collected for previous registration. However, the cumulative figure of 85,362 persons from the recent CVR indicates that there are 21,150 (24.5%) persons with Albinism; 13,387 (15.7%) with physical impediment and 8,103 (9.5%) are blind,” he added.
The head of INEC continued by saying that significant amounts of sensitive and non-sensitive materials have already been distributed to numerous sites across the nation.
He claims that the final batch of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, or BVAS, has been received and that the crucial technology’s ongoing configuration in preparation for elections would soon be finished.
The 20 states in the North have 50, 161,722 voters, while the South has 43, 305,286 voters, according to a breakdown of the 93.469 million voters.
With 22,255,562 voters, the North-West has the most voters out of the six geopolitical zones. The South-West, which has 17, 958,966 voters, comes in second, followed by the North-Central, which includes Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, with 15,363,731 voters.
With 10,905606 votes, the South-East has the fewest voters, followed by the North-East (12,542,429) and South-South (14,440,71).
According to a breakdown by state, Lagos State had the most registered voters with 7,060,195, followed by Kano with 5,921,370, and Kaduna with 4,335,208.
With 987,647 voters, Ekiti has the fewest voters, followed by Bayelsa (1,056,862) and Yobe (1,485,146).
