2023: INEC Speaks On Exteding Voters Registration

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has stated that the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise will not be extended.

Naija News reports that the CVR exercise will end today Sunday, July 31, 2022 after it was extended by two weeks by the National Chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu.

Speaking with reporters on Saturday in Awka, Anambra State, INEC spokesman, Festus Okoye ruled out the possibility of the Commission extending the exercise.

Okoye said the electoral agency would end the exercise in order to allow it to prepare for the 2023 general elections and carry on with its other constitutional responsibilities

He said the commission would at the end of the exercise scrutinise the voters’ registers to clean up possible incidents of double registration, print permanent voters cards (PVC), and display voters’ registers across polling units, among others.

Okoye said those who registered or carried out voter transfers between January and June 2022 will get their PVC in October, while those who enrolled in July would receive theirs by November 2022.

He also disclosed that in Anambra State, a total of 276,767 registrants completed their registration processes as of 25th July 2022. Okoye commended stakeholders in the state for supporting the commission throughout the period of the exercise.

The INEC spokesman, however, assured Nigerians that Okoye said the commission is prepared for the 2023 general elections and determined to conduct free, fair and credible polls.

He said: “We deployed a total of 110 INEC development devices to Anambra. 10 malfunctioned. 6 were repaired by our in-house engineers and redeployed back to fields. As you know, the exercise was slowed down at some places in the South East for security purposes. And we devices mitigating measure to fortify it” he said

“In Anambra State, we trained some of our staff to assist in carrying out the exercise. By training some of our staff, we isolated those for transfer, replacement, and others. We trained our staff to assist in rendering the various services. We extracted clear protocol on how to carry out voters transfer.

“Few weeks we isolated places to carry out intervention; we took machines to markets, churches, NUJ, NYSC orientation camp and other places due to large concentration. This helped to mitigate the surging crowd. For complaints over the performance of our staff, we developed a compliant desk for people to voice out their complaints. Over 50 complaints were received and treated. We carried intervention at 82 locations.”