The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed the removal of 7,746 deceased voters from the national voter register across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory as of December 2022.
Victoria Etta-Messi, INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, disclosed this on Thursday.
“Seven thousand, seven hundred and forty-six deceased persons across the 36 states and the FCT were removed from the National Register of voters as of December 2022,” she stated.
INEC mentions challenges in purging dead voters record
INEC emphasized that a thorough cleaning of the voter register is conducted before every general election. However, the commission acknowledged ongoing challenges in maintaining an accurate voter database.
In its 2023 post-general election review, held in December 2024, INEC highlighted the persistent difficulty of removing deceased voters due to gaps in official death records.
“Problems with official death records continue to make it very difficult for INEC to remove deceased registrants,” the commission noted.
Efforts to improve the voter registration process have seen some success, with 12,298,944 new registrants added.
Additionally, the deployment of the Automated Biometric Identification System helped identify and eliminate 2,780,756 invalid registrations, accounting for 22.6 percent of all new registrants.
Despite these improvements, concerns about declining voter turnout remain pressing.
The 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections recorded a turnout of 27.5 percent, a significant drop from the 35.6 percent seen in 2019. Stakeholders partly attributed this decline to an inflated voter register and called for more rigorous measures to clean it up.
Collaboration with national agencies recommended
To address these issues, stakeholders recommended enhanced collaboration between INEC and agencies such as the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to improve the identification of deceased voters.
“There were suggestions to strengthen collaboration with other agencies such as NIMC and NPC to identify deceased persons in the register and remove them. Additionally, the commission could suspend individuals who have not voted in the past three elections and require them to revalidate their registration,” INEC noted.
INEC chairman risks jail term
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) filed a contempt lawsuit against Yakubu.
SERAP filed the suit against the INEC boss for “failing to investigate the allegations of electoral offences committed during the 2023 general elections, identify suspected perpetrators and their sponsors, and ensure their effective prosecution.”