The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that 93.5 million Nigerians will vote in the 2023 elections.
INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this during the third quarterly meeting with political parties in Abuja yesterday.
He said 9,518,188 new voters had been added to the existing register of 84,004,084 voters.
He stated that although 12.29 million Nigerians successfully completed the just concluded continuous voter registration (CVR), about 2.78 million were removed as ineligible registrants.
The chairman said the decision followed a rigorous clean up of the data, using the automated biometric identification system (ABIS).
He said the preliminary register of voters in Nigeria stands at 93,522,272 adding that among the invalidated registrations were double/multiple cases, underage persons and outright fake registrations.
“Consequently, the number of valid registrations (post-ABIS) is 9,518,188.
“In terms of demographic distribution, 7.2 million new voters or 76.5 per cent are young people between 18 and 34 years, while there is a slightly higher number of females (4.8 million or 50.82 per cent) than male (4.6 million or 49.18 per cent) voters.
“In terms of occupation, 3.8 million, translating to 40.8 per cent, are students. Hard copies giving the full details of the distribution of the new voters are included in your folders for this meeting,” Yakubu told the stakeholders.
According to the data, the northwest geopolitical zone has the highest total of 22.27 million registered voters.
In the 2019 elections, the northwest zone, comprising of seven states – Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi and Jigawa – had 20.15 million voters. With an addition of 2,120, 670 (now 22.27 million), new registrants, the region maintains its lead.
The southwest, which comprises Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo, has risen from 16.29 million in 2019 to 17.93 million, according to the latest data released by INEC. The number of new registrants from is South West is 1,640,374.
The north central, which is made up of Nasarawa, Kogi, Benue, Niger, Kwara, Plateau and the Federal Capital Territory, trails behind with 15.33 million voters; having added 1.96 million newly registered voters to a 2019 figure of 13.36 million.
In the fourth position is south-south, which comprises Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Cross River, Bayelsa, Edo and Delta states.
The number of registered voters rose from 12.84 million to 14.4 million, while the northeast, made up of Yobe, Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi and Gombe, added 1.25 million new voters to reach 12.5 million.
The southeast, which is made up of Ebonyi, Enugu, Abia, Anambra and Imo), recorded the lowest number.
As of 2019, the region had 10 million registered voters. This has now risen to 10.9 million, with an addition of 930,987,738 new voters.
A state-by-state breakdown reveals that Lagos has the highest number, increasing its figure from 6.5 million to seven million; Kano State also maintained its second position increasing its figure from 5.4 million to 5.9 million.
Kaduna State now has 4.3 million registered voters, while Katsina added 412,977 to have 3.6 million.
Speaking further, Yakubu said the commission penned down 23 of its registration officers for severe sanctions, after they had attempted to engage in multiple registration.
Stressing that there is no going back on the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for voter accreditation, the INEC chairman insisted the transmission of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in real-time on election day will be deployed.
According to him, INEC has buried use of the Incident Form, which he said enabled ineligible persons to vote using other people’s permanent voter cards (PVCs).
With The Guardian report
