By Chris Udochukwu
Abuja – The Co-founder and Director of Programme, YIAGA Africa, Ms Cynthia Mbamalu, has called on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to audit the voter register in 2022, noting that the register was crucial to the credibility of an election.
She said, “The voter register is an important document that contributes to the credibility of an election because you need the register of voters that actually captures the eligible voters and the exact number of those who are supposed to vote in an election. Flawed voter registration will impact the quality of the elections because if the voter register is not credible, it raises questions about the process itself.
“However, one of the challenges the commission has had in the past years is cleaning up the register. To clean up the register, it includes identifying voters who are no longer alive, voters who have moved from one location to another and issues around underage voters.
“The electoral commission has 2022 to prepare for the general elections and I think what is most important is that the commission uses the one year to the election to conduct an audit of the register.”
She said the audit would identify multiple registration and ensure the register was properly cleaned up. She also called on INEC to ensure people showed a form of identification before they were registered.
She added, “One of the things we have observed is that it is a bit difficult for the registration officers to demand a form of identity. There are some communities where people do not even have birth certificates, national identity cards or any form of identification.”
She lamented that in some communities during the continuous voter registration, people conspire to put pressure on INEC officials to register underage persons. “However, there is an available technology with INEC that just by identifying their clear pictures, they can easily detect an underage person.”
She said the cleanup might not totally rid the register of names that shouldn’t be there, noting that it would sanitise the register. “It is important the commission conducts that audit and this is also because, in the 2019 elections, there was a difference of over two million between the figure given before the election and the final figure revealed during the announcement of results.”
She stressed that the ongoing CVR, which continues in 2022, presents INEC with an opportunity to audit the register. She said there was a need to ensure proper allocation of voters across polling units to reduce congestion during elections.
She however warned, “If we proceed to a new election with a register that all we had done was to add and not clean up, it raises major questions on the integrity of the process because you need a credible voter register to ensure that the election is credible. You want to be sure that those voting are registered, eligible Nigerian voters. We need a clean register to ensure that there is a better process in the next general elections.”
Also, the Director of Media and Publicity, the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education, Armsfree Ajanaku, said elections could not be said to be credible if the voter register contained people who had died.
He added, “This anomaly should therefore be quickly fixed as the 2023 general elections approach. We call on INEC to undertake a periodic cleanup of the voter register to ensure it is an accurate reflection of voters who have registered. The electoral amendment, which is currently in limbo, is a factor here. Without a comprehensive and up-to-date legal framework, how does INEC begin to prepare for the general elections in 2023?
“We believe the National Assembly should quickly resolve the impasse with the amendment so that INEC can take its preparations for the general elections to the higher level, including fixing the inaccuracies in the voter register.”
The Chairman, Partners for Electoral Reform, Mr Ezenwa Nwagwu, said citizens had a role to play both during registration and after. He noted that with electronic voting, there was the hope of having an authentic voter register.
He added, “Most of these processes are citizens’ responsibilities, which we abdicate. One obstacle to cleaning the register of underage voters is those who are suffering from malnutrition and stunted growth, making such persons look like underage voters. It is those who live in that environment that would know that.
“INEC’s job is to register the citizens; it is not their job to say this person has passed on or is underage. There are processes of cleaning the voter register, how much of those processes have we taken advantage of?
“When the voters list is posted, people who live in that vicinity can raise those issues, then INEC has the responsibility to deal with the issues that have been raised.”
He said that there was the need to increase civic education for citizens to take the responsibility of a fair, clean and acceptable election more seriously than they were doing.
He added, “We have close to more than 80 million voters and we have never had more than 35 million people voting. The Biometric Voters Accreditation System will help to reduce voter identity theft and multiple voting issues.
Nwagwu argued that to have a credible election, it involves all stakeholders. “You could have a good register but if the politicians are not in the conversation for a free and fair election, you may not have it,” he added.
He said the introduction of various technologies would help to safeguard the integrity of the elections.
Meanwhile, spokesperson for the Coalition of 52 Northern Groups (CNG), Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said it was unfortunate that over 60 years after independence, Nigeria did not have an authentic population figure or accurate voter register.
He added, “With regards to dead persons on the voter register one year to the elections, we do not think that would affect the credibility of the 2023 elections. The names on the register do not affect the number of votes cast which is the basis for determining results at the end of the day.
“Out of about 70 million registered voters some years back, the elections were decided by about 30 million persons. The others were either dead or alive. Nevertheless, it is disturbing that we cannot have an accurate death and birth register in this country. This can be blamed on the lack of meaningful roles for traditional rulers who would have been able to maintain such a register easily.
