INEC presents updated voter register for 2023 elections to 18 political parties

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Wednesday presented a soft copy of the updated voter register to the 18 political parties in the country.

The presentation was made when the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, met with the leadership of these political parties at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja.

At the meeting which is the first this year, Yakubu presented the 2023 voter register to the parties ahead of the elections as required by the 2022 Electoral Act as well as pledged the Commission’s preparedness to conduct a free fair, and credible election in the country next month

Those in attendance at the meeting included leaders of the All Progressives Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party, the Labour Party, and the New Nigeria People’s Party, amongst others.

Highlights of the voters register

INEC presented a register containing 93,469,008 voters for the 2023 general elections with 44,414,846 voters registered as females, and 49,054,162 voters registered as males.

Of the total registered voters, the number of young people between the ages of 18 and 34 stood at 37,060,399, representing 39.65% of total registered voters while the elderly between the ages of 50 and 69 stood at 17,700,270, representing 18.94% of the total registered voters.

The INEC chairman said with the presentation of the voter register, the commission has successfully implemented 11 out of the 14 activities scheduled for the 2023 general elections.

According to him, every other arrangement is going on smoothly including the distribution of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).

Yakubu also pointed out that the commission does not contemplate any postponement of the election date.

For the record

The voters register has been undergoing a clean-up exercise by INEC for some months in preparation for the 2023 general election after the commission suspended the continuous voter registration exercise.

The INEC Chairman during a national stakeholders’ forum organized by the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room in November 2022, said that the commission’s decision to holistically scrutinize the voters’ register, followed several complaints it has received from Nigerians.

INEC had in October last year revealed that it had weeded out about 2.7 million invalid voter registrations from its database during its comprehensive clean-up of the registration data.