INEC online voter registration rises to one million

THE Independent National Electoral Commission on Tuesday said over one million Nigerians have registered four weeks after the commencement of its online pre-registration exercise which started on June 28, 2021.

INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said this in a statement, in Abuja.

Okoye said as of on Monday, “the number of new registrants has risen to 1,006,661.”

According to him, the detailed distribution of the registrants by age, state/FCT, gender, occupation and disability for week four of the exercise has been uploaded on the commission’s website and social media platforms.

Okoye’s statement read in part, “However, the distribution by age still shows that 740,063 (or 73.5 per cent) are young Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 34.”

“As earlier announced by the commission, physical or in-person registration commenced on July 26 at its 811 State and Local Government Area offices nationwide.

Okoye said, “The exact locations of the designated centres have already been uploaded to our website and social media platforms. For further details, citizens are encouraged to contact our state offices through the dedicated telephone numbers provided in the uploaded publication

“Nigerians who pre-registered online can now complete their registration at those centres based on scheduled appointments.

“In addition, other Nigerians who prefer to register physically/in-person can now do so at those centres.

“Both online pre-registration and physical/in-person registration will continue simultaneously until the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise on June 30 2022 to enable the commission to clean up the data and compile the voter register for the 2023 general election.

“The right to vote begins with the registration of voters. Thus, as we enter the next phase of the CVR exercise, we once again appeal to all citizens, who wish to register to approach any of the commission’s state or local government area offices nationwide to do so.”