The Independent National Electoral Commission says there will be at least 80 million registered voters in Nigeria by 2019.....
The INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu,
said this in Abuja on Saturday when the European Union Electoral groups
Follow-up Mission to Nigeria, Civil Society Organisations and other
stakeholders compared notes with INEC at a round-table discussion
organised by the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and West Africa.
Yakubu, who also spoke on the Continuous
Voter Registration, said, “The credibility of elections depends on the
credibility of the voter register. We are now doing it continuously. We
have seen some challenges and we are responding to them.
“We started in April and as of last
week, we have registered 3.2 million (Nigerians) on top of the 70
million registered voters for the 2015 general elections that we had
before. Our projection is that the voter register will probably be over
80 million by 2019.”
Yakubu, however, revealed that about eight million Permanent Voter Cards had yet to be collected by their owners.
He said, “We haven’t made much progress
in the last two years (but) we have made elaborate arrangements with the
states to ensure that the cards are collected.”
Giving a summary of the commission’s
preparations towards the 2019 general elections, the INEC boss added
that by next week, the commission would come up with a figure of what it
would cost the nation to conduct the 2019 general elections.
He added that the electoral body had conducted 172 elections since 2015.
On the Anambra governorship election
coming up on November 18, he said, “We are combining the governorship
election with the Idemili North state constituency election. There will
be two ballot boxes and voters will receive two ballot papers.
“All the other arrangements – logistics,
staff training, and security – are in place. We are killing two birds
with one stone. And for the first time in the history of elections in
Nigeria, 37 political parties are contesting in the Anambra election.
“Out of the 14 activities lined up, we
have executed nine. We are determined as a commission to make the 2019
general elections better than 2015.”
On the disclosure of party finances, the INEC chairman distinguished between campaign and party finance.
He admitted that tracking party finances
could be challenging,“but where a political party comes out openly to
raise funds beyond the limits provided for in the constitution, the
commission will apply sanctions.”
Meanwhile, the European Union has called
on INEC to improve on identified areas of failure, including punishing
campaign violations.
It also asked the agency to increase
transparency in the publication of elections results and reinforce
policies to better integrate women and youths into political life.
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