Voter Suppression
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Nigeria’s electoral body disenfranchises voters
Nigeria’s electoral body the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) has been accused of voter suppression by voters, who are yet to be registered as the commission shut down the registration exercise on Sunday.
INEC said the year-long exercise that ended on Sunday had registered 10.49 million new voters, with 84% of these aged 34 and below. The body disclosed this in its Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) update for Quarter 4, week 16, released on Monday, August 1 in Abuja.
The commission also said that during the period, 12.2 million registrants completed their registrations, of which 3.4 million registered online, while 8.8 million registered through physical registration.
A breakdown of the completed registration by states showed that Lagos has the highest number of registrants that completed their registration with 585,629 registrants, followed by Kano with 569,103 and Delta with 523,517.
According to the data provided by INEC, youth registration that is the 18-34 age group stood at 18.4 million, energised by the popular Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi.
Meanwhile INEC publication of the CVR has elicited strong responses on social media with commentators calling for the registration to be extended.
“We need extension of voter’s registration As many has not registered My pregnant wife went to 3 different centers in pH Nigeria to register in but couldn’t because of too much crowed. They could not even consider her pregnancy Pls extend registration.” One wrote in response.
“I’m not even impressed @inecnigeria you are a disgrace for failing to provide machine for proper and fast registration…. Please do well to adjust the date of registration further.” Another wrote.
“Extend voters registration date. Production & Collection of PVC should not be a rocket science taking months to get.” One aggrieved voter wrote. As it stands Nigeria has about 96 million registered voters for the 2023 Presidential Election.
Source NAN/Twitter
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