INEC To Publish Official Voters Register On January 16, Says Parents Of Visibly Underaged Voters Risk Arrest

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that plans are underway to publish the official register of voters that will be used for the 2023 general election on January 16.

Naija News reports that the commission said it believes that its voters’ register is a robust one that has captured about 93.5 percent registered voters in it.

The commission’s National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, while featuring on Arise TV Television programme, ‘Sunrise Daily’ acknowledged that the commission has issues with underage voters which are being addressed.

He, however, revealed that as part of addressing it INEC has warned underage voters to stay away from polling units during the general election or risk arrest.

Okoye noted that parents of the ineligible voters will also be arrested for aiding and abetting electoral fraud.

He explained that “Our voters’ register is robust and we believe that it is very credible. As of today, we have 93.5 registered voters in the register.

“On the 16th of January 2023, the Commission will publish the official register of voters that will be used for the 2023 general election.

“Yes, I completely agree that there have been issues around underage registration.

“In some of the areas where we recorded underage registration, we have summoned all the officers that engaged in that particular exercise to appear before the Commission and appear before a special panel of the Commission and it is still ongoing.

“We have made it very clear that any visibly underage person should not approach any of our polling units on election day.

“If the person does appear, he or she would be arrested, alongside their parents for aiding and abetting such a venture.

“The Chairman has told Nigerians that the cleaning of the voter register is an ongoing venture and we are going to make sure that all malicious registrations that got into our register will be removed prior to election day.

“Some of the information on social media relating to underage registration was carried out between 2011 and before we went into the 2019 general election.

“This Commission had the courage to publish the voter register and asked Nigerians to scrutinise the register to make sure that every malicious registration is removed.

“We assure Nigerians that the voters register that will be used in the 2023 election is the one that they will be proud of.”