By JOHN ONAH, Abuja
The Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, has said that the Commission is not contemplating any adjustment to the election timetable, let alone the postponement of the General Election.
According to him, for the avoidance of doubt, the Presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on Saturday 25th February 2023 while Governorship and State Assembly elections will hold two weeks later on Saturday 11th March 2023.
Yakubu who disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during the presentation of the National Register of Voters to political parties, said that the repeated assurance by the security agencies for the adequate protection of our personnel, materials and processes also reinforces our determination to proceed.
He said: “The 2023 General Election will hold as scheduled. Any report to the contrary is not the official position of the Commission”.
“As a further affirmation of the Commission’s readiness to conduct the 2023 General Election as scheduled, the final register of voters has been compiled. You would recall that for the 2019 General Election, Nigeria had a voter population of 84,004,084. After the cleaning up of the data from the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise (June 2021 – July 2022), 9,518,188 new voters were added to the previous register resulting in the preliminary register of 93,522,272 which was presented to Nigerians for claims and objections as required by law”.
He further disclosed that at the end of the period for claims and objections by citizens, the Commission received 53,264 objections from Nigerians to the prevalence of ineligible persons on the register by virtue of age, citizenship or death.
These names, he said have been verified and removed from the register.
“Consequently, the register of voters for the 2023 General Election stands at 93,469,008. Of this cumulative figure, 49,054,162 (52.5%) are male while 44,414,846 (47.5%) are female. The distribution by age group shows that 37,060,399 (39.65%) are youth between the ages of 18 and 34; 33,413,591 (35.75%) are middle aged persons between the ages of 35 and 49; 17,700,270 (18.94%) are elderly voters between the ages of 50 and 69 while 5,294,748 (5.66%) are senior citizens aged 70 and above. In terms of occupational distribution, students constitute the largest category with 26,027,481 (27.8%) of all voters, followed by 14,742,554 (15.8%) Farmers/Fishermen and 13,006,939 (13.9%) housewives”.
“The data on disability was not collected for previous registration. However, the cumulative figure of 85,362 persons from the recent CVR indicates that there are 21,150 (24.5%) persons with Albinism; 13,387 (15.7%) with physical impediment and 8,103 (9.5%) are blind”.
“The soft copy of the complete register will be presented to each political party shortly. It is organised by State, Local Government, Ward and Polling Unit. It is also the same register that will be used on Election Day. Hard copies of the breakdown of the register by States of the Federation and analysis by gender, age group, occupation and disability are enclosed in your folders for this meeting. The soft copy of the breakdown and analysis will be uploaded to our website and social media platforms shortly”, he added.
The INEC chairman, however, reiterated the commission’s commitment to transparent, credible and inclusive 2023 General Election.
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