By JOHN ONAH, Abuja –
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has explained that 7 million Nigerians who pre-registered in the nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise suspended on the 31st of July 2022, were NOT deliberately denied the opportunity to complete their registration.
The clarification came on the heels of an allegation that the Commission denied some Nigerians the opportunity to complete their registration
INEC which described the claim as misleading, maintained that no Nigerians were deliberately denied the opportunity to complete their online pre-registration.
The National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee (IVEC), Festus Okoye, made the clarification in a statement issued on Monday.
The statement said In the interest of transparency, the Commission provided weekly statistical updates on the exercise, and explained that “for the online pre registration, a total 10,487,972 commenced the process.”
“However, by the deadline of the exercise, 3,444,378 Nigerians completed there pre-registration physically at the designated centres in line with the Commission’s policy. Some 7,043,594 applicants did not complete the registration.”
“Again, the Commission made the information public. This is what some people are now using to say that they were denied the opportunity when in reality they failed to either complete the online enrolment or appear physically at the designated centres to complete the process.”
The statement further gave a breakdown of the 7,043,594 incomplete online registrations is as; 4.161,775 citizens attempted but either did not complete online pre-registration or abandoned it and went for the physical registration instead. While 2,881,819 registrants completed the online pre-registration but did not show up to complete the physical Biometric Capture at designated centres before the deadline.
It will be recalled that the Commission introduced the online pre-registration of voters June 28th, 2021, to give citizens the opportunity to commence the registration online and then book for an appointment at their convenience to complete the physical Biometric Capture at designated centres.
Its introduction was a novel idea leveraging on technology to ease the registration process. This was in addition to the walk-in option at physical centres, where Nigerians were allowed to commence and complete their registration simultaneously without going through the online pre-registration procedure.
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