INEC Disqualifies 88,630 Voters in Osun

Kazeem Badmus

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that a total of 88,630 voters registration in the State of Osun have been invalidated for flouting the guidelines stipulated for the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.

According to the commission, 218,142 new registrations were completed, out of which 88,630 were invalidated, representing 40.6% of the total number of new voters.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who gave the statistics during a press conference at the Commission’s Headquarters, on Wednesday, said the infraction happened in all the states of the Federation.

According to him, out of the 2,523,458 new registrations, 1,126,359, representing 44.6% were invalid, adding that the infraction which was uncovered while cleaning up the voter register, happened across the 36 states.

He said: “While the number of new registrants is very impressive and demonstrates the eagerness of Nigerians to vote in the forthcoming elections, the commission has a duty to clean up the data to ensure that only eligible Nigerians are registered.

“As you are aware, the foundation for any credible election rests on the credibility of the Register of Voters. The introduction of the biometric registration of voters in 2011 has helped to sanitise the register. You may recall that initially, 73,528,040 Nigerians were registered in 2011.

“Using the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), the commission was able to remove 4,239,923 invalid registrations. Consequently, the Register of Voters for the 2015 General Election stood at 69,288,117 voters.”