The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said 8,260,076 eligible Nigerians have so far applied for inclusion in the Permanent Voters Register ahead of next year’s elections.
The INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmud Yakubu disclosed this at a quarterly parley with media executives in Abuja said majority of the applicants are youths and students.
Besides, Yakubu said over 101 associations now want to be registered as political parties. There are currently 18 political parties.
Seventy-four others were recently deregistered by the electoral umpire for falling below required performance.
The revelation is coming 392 days to the 2023 general elections in the country.
One of the groups seeking registration as a political party, he said, applied with a sheet of paper without an address.
He said: “And I asked if we are to reply to this application, to which address shall we send the reply?”
The INEC chairman said another individual applied to register six political parties. He however explained that while the guidelines for the registration of political parties are specified in the constitution, the commission has a procedure which it would follow to consider the applications.
On the February local council election in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja he noted that on 12th February 2022, “a major end of tenure election will hold in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to elect 6 Area Council Chairmen/Chairwomen and 62 councillors.”
The FCT council election, he said, will be followed by two governorship elections in Ekiti State on 18th June 2022 and Osun State on 16th July 2022.
He reiterated that party primaries for the Ekiti State governorship election are scheduled for 4th – 29th January 2022. For the Osun State governorship election, he noted that primaries will hold from 16th February to 12th March 2022.
“In the case of Ekiti State, all the 18 political parties have indicated their intention to participate in the election and have already served the mandatory notices for their primaries to elect their candidates as required by law,” he said.
In addition to the end of tenure elections, he said six bye-elections are scheduled to hold on Saturday 26th February 2022 in Cross River, Imo, Ondo and Plateau states. He added however that three by-elections were still pending.
He said: “You may recall that the Commission suspended Ekiti East I State Constituency bye-election in March 2020 following its violent disruption by thugs. The election will now be combined with the state governorship election holding on 18th June 2022.
“The date for the Shinkafi State Constituency bye-election in Zamfara State will be announced after a thorough review of the security situation in the area, while the Commission awaits the declaration of vacancy by the Kaduna State House of Assembly in respect of Giwa West State Constituency.”
On the distribution of voters to Polling Units in the FCT, particularly the fact that 593 out of 2,822 (or 21%) of the total do not have voters, he noted that “this is because voters failed to take advantage of the expansion of access to transfer to these new Polling Units.
“The Commission looks forward to the support of media organisations to encourage voters who wish to transfer from their present polling units to new ones created as part of the Commission’s expansion of access polling units across the country.
“After all, your support was crucial to the success of the recent expansion of voter access to polling units for the first time in 25 years since the initial delimitation in 1996,” he said.
He insisted that the critical preparations for the 2023 General Election must be concluded this year.
He said: “For instance, the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) which commenced in June last year has entered the third quarter. As at Monday 17th January 2022, a total of 8,260,076 eligible Nigerians commenced the online pre-registration, completed the registration physically, applied for transfer to new voting locations, requested for replacement of their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) and updated their voter information records.
“The Commission has been publishing weekly progress reports of the exercise, including analysis of the distribution of online and completed registration by age group, occupation, gender and disability.
“Since the exercise commenced in June last year, the Commission has so far published 36 weekly reports which show a consistent pattern of young Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 34 constituting the largest majority of registrants.
“In terms of occupation, students constitute the largest majority of registrants, which is consistent with the dominance of young Nigerians as voters.
“We are aware that Nigerians want to know when their PVCs will be available for collection.
“For those who have completed the registration, the Commission is right now undertaking the most comprehensive cleaning up of the data to ensure that only eligible citizens are added to the voters’ register for the 2023 general election.
“We will share our findings with Nigerians very soon. The actual dates for the collection of the PVCs nationwide will also be announced very soon.”
For emphasis, he noted that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will be deployed in the FCT elections, which is the second major election after the Anambra governorship election held in November last year.
The 68 constituencies cover extensive urban and rural locations sharing border with five states in the North Central and North West parts of the country.
“This is yet another opportunity to pilot the efficacy of the BVAS in a different geographical, geo-political and electoral context.
“The same technology will be deployed in all forthcoming elections across the country.
“Similarly, for all elections going forward, Polling Unit results will be uploaded in real-time on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal,” he said.