IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has blocked several Nigerians who have raised complaints on their Twitter page, about the registration of underaged ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Twitter users including @Morris_Monye, @nkemchor, and @Tabraos raised the alarm on Wednesday with screenshots shared as evidence.
With less than 100 days to the 2023 general elections, claims of double registration and underage voters have trailed the preliminary voter register published by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), despite repeated assurances by the Commission and President Muhammadu Buhari to deliver free, fair and credible polls.
The preliminary register, containing 93,522,272 registrants, has the name, picture, date of birth and Voter Identification Number (VIN) of each registered voter. For data protection and security reasons, information such as biometric details, residential addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of voters were not made public.
The list was published after the Commission said it had carried out a rigorous clean-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) and deleted 2.7 million cases of double registration during the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).
A review of the register revealed that despite moves by INEC to sanitize the list using ABIS, there are still irregularities.
Though INEC has urged Nigerians to raise objections against the inclusion of any person not qualified to vote or names of dead persons on the register, prominent among the irregularities is the revelation that the list has some registrants with the same name, personal information and photographs but different Voter Identification Numbers (VIN).
Also, the contentious underage issue came up again with the released list. The 1999 Constitution and Electoral Act, of 2022, provide that a person must be 18 years and above to be registered as a voter and eligible to vote.
Nigerians have raised objections on Twitter with the hashtag INEC CleanUp, that photographs of some of the registrants do not match their age.
A tweep, @mavisikpeme said: “Isnāt it just funny how this discrepancies is coming from one part of Nigeria alone ?
Our Northern brothers and sisters , donāt allow #INEC steal our mandate . Log in and report . If you canāt pls Dm your info and I will gladly help InecCleanUp”
“INEC was able to invalidate millions of votes in the South for unclear reasons, but somehow missed obvious things like underage voters!
“While we’re reporting instances of these, @inecnigeria should apply themselves to cleaning these up now! INECCleanUp INECCleanUp”, another tweep, @jollynony wrote.
@EniyeAmeze said INEC plans to rig the elections will fail.
“All INEC plans to rig this election will fail. Wicked set of people registering kids as eligible voters.”
@mbonu_chinonso tweeted that the North has the highest voting power because every four years, underaged children are allowed to register.
“That is why every 4 years they will tell us that the north is the highest voting power, children of under 13 allowed to register, it will never be well with people that keeps doing this.
Inec needs to be audited.”
Entertainer and media personality, Tunde Ednut call on Nigerians to focus on INEC CleanUp and also retweet steps for raising an objection before next week.
“Let focus on #INECCleanUp today! Deadline is next week. The change you all wanted starts today . Retweet for maximum awareness”
Dr. Charles Odogwu also reacted: “If the INEC register is not cleaned up and the process made transparent, there should be no election! We canāt continue like this.
“Thereās an expiry date to every lie and deceit. Wake up Nigeria!!! InecCleanUp”
Programme Director of one of Nigeriaās foremost electoral observer groups, Yiaga Africa, Cynthia Mbamalu, told The Guardian on Wednesday, 16 November, that names of persons clearly under-aged were present in the list.
Mbamalu, who said the organization deployed observers in the 36 states to monitor the display of voter register by INEC, said the development is a call on the electoral body to investigate the apparent cases of underage registration and do further follow-up to sanitize the list.
She said: āOne of the allegations in this process that has to do with the display of voter register is the registration of underaged persons. On the register, we are seeing people who are clearly underage to vote.
“But one of the things we want INEC to do is to confirm the validity of the age provided by those involved. We call on INEC to investigate these cases, especially those that seem very apparent.
‘We know that there are people with a small stature but may not be underage. INEC, however, has the responsibility of investigating these apparent cases and doing further follow-up.ā