10 Million New Voters Registered By INEC

INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu. (Photo credit: File photo).

10 Million New Voters Registered By INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday announced that no fewer than 10 Million persons have been registered in the ongoing nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).

Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the commission made this known at the commission’s quarterly consultative meeting with security agencies under the auspices of Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) in Abuja that the people were registered between April, 2017 when the CVR commenced and end of June, 2018.

The newly register voters are in addition to the 70 Million others that have been registered earlier.

“As at June 22, 2018 fresh registration was 9,922,619, PVC Collection, 576,346; request for transfer, 489,354 and request for replacement of PVCs, 766,435,”

“What this means is that since the commencement of CVR on April 27, 2017, about 10 million Nigerians have been registered and this will be added to existing register of 70 million voters.

“This means that as we approach 2019 general elections, Nigeria will have voter register of at least 80 million.”  Yakubu said.

Yakubu insisted on the resolve of the commission to conduct elections that will be described as transparent, free and fair.

He said that following stakeholders’ demand for transparency in the electoral process, INEC responded by displaying result for each polling unit immediately after counting of ballots for public information.

“Having found this as a useful way of enhancing citizens’ mandate protection, we took it a step further by introducing the EC60E.

“The form is a large poster reflecting the result in each polling unit as recorded on the EC8A shared with agents of political parties,” the chairman said.

While commenting to the issue discussed, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-Gen. Mohammed Monguno (rtd), promised that necessary security support would be given to ensure the success of the Ekiti governorship election and 2019 general elections.

Monguno, who was represented by Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Mrs Peace Abdallah, expressed confidence that the INEC would continue to conduct credible elections.