The House of Representatives has mandated the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to clean up its system of dead and fictitious registered voters.
This followed a motion brought under the matter of Urgent Public Importance titled “Issue: Urgent Need for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) To Develop Mechanism to Clean Up Its System of Dead and Fictitious Registered Voters”, sponsored by Hon. Leke Abejide.
The motion said that “Aware that the Independent National Electoral Commission’s register is full of
millions of people who are dead and non-existent, it was glaring and crystal clear that people that were long dead had their names still displayed in the voters’ register. Even my deceased father who passed on long ago still has his name displayed on the Board”.
The motion further notes that apart from dead voters there were millions of fictitious voters who do not exist anywhere on the earth but have their names on INEC register of voters.
Abejide said that the clogged system is as a result of the double or multiple registrations by Nigerians who had intentions of rigging the election but were thwarted by the advent of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS).
The House resolved that “INEC should develop a mechanism or software application where families who lost their loved ones can report the demise of a particular PVC number so that it can be duly deleted from INEC register, polling unit, and ward. That whoever does not vote in two election cycles back to back be deleted from INEC register as non-existing human beings”.
The Reps also mandated the House Committee on Electoral Matters to ensure compliance.
The Motion was amended to read that INEC should include voter verification during continuous voter registration to identify those on the register who are still alive as well as fish out those with fake registration.
Emmanuel Ukoh
