The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mamoud Yakubu, has revealed that about 2.7 million registrants were deleted from the voters’ registry for double registration in the suspended continuous voters’ registration (CVR) exercise.
This is following the vetting and cleaning up process in which Nigeria’s electoral commission announced it was subjecting the voters’ registry to eliminate multiple and ineligible registrants.
By the recent delisting, the number of registrants with completed registration drops from 12,298,944 (August 2022) to 9,598,944.
Why this matter
INEC is carrying out this clean-up exercise and other related activities to end the bad run of rigging recorded in the country’s previous elections.
Implications of the Delisted Voters
According to INEC’s Election Project Plan (EPP) committee, Nigeria’s electoral body budgeted the sum of N305 billion for the 2023 elections. Using COVI (cost of voters’ index) for a transactional democracy such as Nigeria, the average cost per voter is between $4 to $8. Multiplying this by the 2.7 million delisted registrants, the country would waste a projected $10.8 million – $21.6 million of the country’s allocated election funds on non-voters. Looking on the bright side, Nigerian voters can be more assured of a free and fair election.
What you should know
The electoral commission hinted that a new set of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) would be available for pickup by November.
INEC also stated that about 50 per cent of the new PVCs are ready but have not yet been distributed to collection centres.