With 11 days to the end of the continuous voter registration
by the Independent National Electoral Commission, the commission has said it is
yet to decide on the growing request for extension.
There has been a clamour for an extension of the exercise,
which began in June 2021 and is scheduled to end on June 30, 2022. Ahead of the
2023 elections, the exercise has witnessed a surge in the number of registrants
in recent weeks, prompting the calls for an extension. The online registration
ended on May 30, 2022.
The House of Representatives on Wednesday asked the
commission to extend the CVR by 60 days, while several civil society
organisations and individuals also called for an extension to the exercise to
enable more Nigerians to register.
Earlier, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability
Project and 185 concerned Nigerians filed a suit at the Federal High Court in
Lagos asking the court for, among other things, an order of mandamus to direct and
compel INEC to extend voter registration by a minimum of three months and take
effective measures to ensure that eligible Nigerians are able to register to
exercise their right to vote in the 2023 general elections.
INEC, in a notice on its website, said the deadline for the
registration was to enable the commission to clean up the registration data,
print the permanent voter cards and compile the register ahead of the 2023
general elections.
Speaking on the request, Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press
Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, stated that the
commission was yet to decide on the issue. He told our correspondent in an
interview on Friday, “INEC does not have any position yet. As of today, the
deadline for the CVR remains June 30, which is less than 13 days away. The
commission will decide what to do next when we get to the bridge.”
The INEC chairman said in June that as of June 1, about 10.2
million fresh registration had been recorded since the exercise started. In
many parts of the country and in social media, there has been a renewed drive
and persuasion by individuals for people, especially the youths, to register
and collect their PVCs.
There are indications that at the end of the exercise, the
number of registered voters nationwide might increase from the 84 million in
2019 to over 100 million by 2023.
The Executive Director, YIAGA Africa, Samson Itodo, said
recently during INEC’s first Twitter Spaces, that the efforts by youths to
register was fascinating but that they should go beyond registering to ensure
they collect their PVCs and vote.
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