Nigeria elections: Voter Registration Ends July 31 – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) in Nigeria will end July 31.

Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye issued a statement after a meeting of the commission on Friday.

Okoye noted that the decision followed the judgement delivered by the Federal High Court on Wednesday.

The court dismissed the suit filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) seeking an extension of the exercise beyond June 30.

The court affirmed that INEC is at liberty to appoint a date of its choice to suspend the CVR, provided it is not later than 90 days before the date fixed for the general election as provided in Sec. 9(6) of the Electoral Act 2022.

The national commissioner recalled that the CVR was already extended for a period of 15 days and that with the judgement, all legal encumbrances have been removed.

“The CVR is hereby extended for another two weeks until Sunday 31st July 2022, thereby bringing the total duration of the extension to 31 days (1st – 31st July 2022)”, he said.

The registration has been extended to eight hours daily from 9.00am – 5.00pm instead of the current 9.00am – 3.00pm.

The commission further approved the exercise to include weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) as against only weekdays.

INEC appealed to eligible citizens not to wait until the last few days before they inundate the centres again to register.

The statement said there is a lot that the commission is required to do under the electoral legal framework in relation to voter registration and compilation.

These include the clean-up of the register to remove multiple registrants using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).

The printing of national register of voters (existing voters and new registrants) and display same on Polling Unit basis for each of the 8,809 Registration Areas (Wards) across the 774 Local Government Areas.

INEC said on the basis of a new projection of 95 million voters and on the basis of 10 voters per page, the commission has to print 9,500,000 pages for the display.

The electoral umpire explained that it would print millions of Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) for fresh registrants and applicants for transfer and replacement of PVCs.

Also to be done is the printing of the final register of voters in triplicate for the 2023 election, involving a projected 28,500,000 pages for accreditation and display at 176,846 polling units for national elections.

The presidential and National Assembly elections will be held on February 25, 2023; State elections (governorship and State Assembly) on March 11, 2023.