YIAGA Africa Urges INEC To Publish Details Of Invalid Voter Registration

A civil society organisation (CSO), YIAGA Africa has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish the details of voter registration declared invalid.

INEC had, in October 2022, said it removed 2.7 million registrants from its database over invalid registration.

At a Friday media roundtable to discuss the 2023 elections, Samson Itodo, YIAGA’s executive director, said INEC ought to have contacted those who were invalidated in order to save them the stress of queuing to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs).

“INEC has invalidated over two million records,” Itodo said.

“Now, these two million record of people are in a list and INEC didn’t publish the list of these people, and so these people whose records have been invalidated are not aware.

“So, they show up to the collection centres only to be told that their PVCs are not ready and they’ve been invalidated, when INEC should have published the list of invalidated records so people know.

“INEC has the contact details of these persons and should contact these people so they don’t show up at the collection centres thinking their PVCs are there.”

He also urged the commission to work towards ensuring the prompt availability of PVCs well before the elections.