The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reacted to an allegation of voter’s registration fraud levelled against the commission by the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP).
A source reported that the CUPP had on Wednesday alleged that the All Progressive Congress (APC) in connivance with INEC is planning to inject fake voters into the country’s national voters’ register in a bid to compromise the elections.
The coalition accused the commission of filing a lawsuit before a Federal High Court in Imo State to prevent the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines at the polls in 2023.
Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, the CUPP’s spokesperson, revealed local governments in Imo state where fake names and photos were allegedly introduced to increase the number of registered voters.
Ikenga mentioned that in some local government, number of registered voters increased from 6500 to 45,000.
CUPP, in the statement released, claimed to be acting on credible intelligence alleged that “The coordinator of the illegal registration in Imo state, for instance, was a former INEC staff who was the head of the state electoral commission and who has now been promoted to a resident electoral commissioner nominee, she supervised the ICT team that was deployed to Imo state from the pool of centrally trained personnel by the party.”
However, reacting to the development, INEC through it spokesperson, Festus Okoye noted that it welcomes and respects the right of citizens to demand accountability.
The electoral umpire, however, called for caution “so that such interventions do not unwittingly sow doubts in the public mind, thereby diminishing public confidence and trust in the electoral process.”
The commission noted that it was yet to add new voters who partook in the recently concluded Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) to the national voter register.
Okoye said not until the cleanup of the voter registration through INEC’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) is concluded, would the new voters be added to the general register.
The commission, however, admitted that more than 3,000 ineligible voters had been invalidated in an ongoing cleanup process in the Imo LGA mentioned by the CUPP.
The statement partly reads: “It is important to reiterate that no new registrant has yet been added to the Register of Voters for the 2023 General Election or will be included until these supplemental activities have been completed in line with the law.”
For the avoidance of doubt, we restate the main components of these activities. First, the Commission is conducting a comprehensive Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) cleanup of the registration data by scrutinising every record. Based on the Electoral Act 2022, any record that does not meet all the criteria for inclusion as stipulated in Section 10, including the appearance in person by the registrant at the registration venue with proof of identity, age and nationality and our business rules requirements of adequate number of fingerprints and clear pictures will be invalidated.
Further, in line with Section 19(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, after the ABIS and clean up, the Commission shall appoint a period of seven days during which the register will be published for scrutiny by the public for objections and complaints.
Finally, it is only after the cleanup and claims and objections have been completed that the final register will be published,” he said.
