The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has declared that the Commission
is not contemplating any adjustment to the election timetable let alone
postponing the 2023 general election.
Yakubu stated this at the presentation of an electronic copy of the
93,469,008 voter register to leaders of political parties on Wednesday in
Abuja.
He said that more than
ever before, the commission was more prepared for the 2023 general elections
and had now successfully implemented 11 out of the 14 activities on schedule
for the elections.
“Already, substantial
quantities of sensitive and non-sensitive materials have been deployed to
various locations across the country.
“The last batch of the
Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) has been received while the ongoing
configuration of the critical technology in readiness for elections will soon
be completed. In the last two days, we commenced the airlifting of other
sensitive materials to States across the country.
“Already, some of the materials for 17 States in three
geo-political zones have been delivered. Furthermore, 13,868,441 Permanent
Voters’ Cards (PVCs) have been printed, and delivered to States and are being
collected by citizens as new voters or by existing voters who applied for transfer
or replacement of cards as provided by law.
He added that similarly, following the display of the voters’
register nationwide and the conclusion of claims and objections by citizens, a
new national register of voters has been compiled.
“In short, at no time in the recent history of the Commission
has so much of the forward planning and implementation been accomplished 44
days ahead of a General Election.
“Therefore, the commission is not contemplating any adjustment
to the election timetable, let alone the postponement of the General Election.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Presidential and National
Assembly elections will hold on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023 while Governorship and
State Assembly elections will hold two weeks later on Saturday, March 11, 2023.
“The repeated assurance by the security agencies for the
adequate protection of our personnel, materials and processes also reinforces
our determination to proceed.
“The 2023 General Election will hold as scheduled. Any report to
the contrary is not the official position of the Commission.’’
On the registered voters, Yakubu said after the cleaning up of the
data from the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) from June 2021 to
July 2022, where 9,518,188 new voters were added to the existing
84,004,084 voters, the preliminary register voters was 93,522,272.
He said that when the register was presented to Nigerians for
claims and objections as required by law, INEC received 53,264 objections from
Nigerians to the prevalence of ineligible persons on the register by virtue of
age, citizenship, or death, which were verified and removed from the register.
“Consequently, the register of voters for the 2023 General
Election stands at 93,469,008. Of this cumulative figure, 49,054,162 (52.5 percent) are male while 44,414,846 (47.5 percent) are female.
“The distribution by age
group shows that 37,060,399 (39.65 percent) are youth between the ages of 18
and 34; 33,413,591 (35.75 percent) are middle-aged persons between the ages
of 35 and 49;
“17,700,270 (18.94 percent) are elderly voters between the
ages of 50 and 69 while 5,294,748 (5.66%) are senior citizens aged 70 and
above.
“In terms of occupational distribution, students constitute the
largest category with 26,027,481 (27.8%) of all voters, followed by 14,742,554
(15.8 percent) Farmers/Fishermen and 13,006,939 (13.9 percent) housewives.
“The data on disability was not collected for previous
registration. However, the cumulative figure of 85,362 persons from the recent
CVR indicates that there are 21,150 (24.5 percent) persons with Albinism;
13,387 (15.7 percent) with physical impediment and 8,103 (9.5 percent) are
blind.”
Yakubu said that the softcopy of the breakdown and analysis
would be uploaded to INEC website and social media platforms shortly.
He reiterated INEC’s commitment to a transparent, credible and
inclusive 2023 General Election, saying INEC would continue to take every step
to protect the sanctity of the votes cast by citizens and to deal with
infractions.
This according to Yakubu, includes the arrest and prosecution of
persons that attempt to perpetuate illegality at Polling Units on Election Day,
be they underaged voters or vote buyers.
On the collection of PVCs at 8,809 Registration Areas/Wards
nationwide, Yakubu said that locations for collection could be identified
by sending a short text message to any of the two dedicated telephone
lines.
In his response IPAC Chairman, Yabagi Sani commended INEC
efforts in ensuring that power is peacefully transferred in the country; in
spite the challenges and plots by anti-democratic agents to truncate the
process.
Sani, who was represented by IPAC General Secretary, Yusuf
Dantalle said that political parties were resolved to ensure to support of INEC,
security agencies and traditional rulers for the peaceful conduct of the 2023 general
election.
He said that party leaders were confident in INEC technology
for the election including BVAS and IReV for electronic transmission of results.
Sani said the deployment of the technology would discourage vote
buying and situations where people write election results from their rooms and
ask INEC officials to declare it for people to go to court..
“It makes evidence that so many efforts are in place to ensure
that this did not work but we are equally appealing to political party leaders
in the country to see that power belongs to God and He gives it to whoever He
will.
“We will try the best we can, but we political leaders must the
country forward. We do not under intense pressure as if we don’t want this
democracy or this election will not succeed.’’
Lagos has the highest number of voters with 7,060,195, followed
by Kano State with 5,921,370 and Kaduna with 4,335,208 registered voters.
Ekiti State has the least registered voters with 987,647,
followed by Bayelsa with 1,056,862 and Yobe with 1,485,146 registered
voters.
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