INEC Defends Voters’ Register

The Chairman of the electoral commission in Nigeria, Professor Attahiru Jega, has said that the voters’ register is not as bad as it is being made to appear by some political parties.

Restating the commission’s resolve to further improve the register,  Professor Jega noted that the document can compare favourably with any other on the continent.

The Independent National Electoral Commission’s boss was speaking during the commission’s 4th quarterly meeting with registered political parties in Abuja on Monday.

“Let me use this opportunity to categorically affirm that while our register of voter is not perfect, it has requisite integrity and it compares favourably with any register of voters on our continent. It is certainly not as bad as some are strenuously trying to make it appear.”

“Nonetheless, we have to keep on improving upon it and we have planned to keep doing so through the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) processes.

“Our CVR programme provides an opportunity for registering all those who have become 18 years old since the last registration, and it also provides an opportunity for all those with missing essential biometric details on the electronic register to be recaptured.”

On the just concluded Anambra election, Professor Jega said that INEC offered these opportunities to voters in the state ahead of the governorship election but ‘regrettably’ many of the electorates did not utilize the opportunity they were given.

He stressed that in planning effectively for the 2015 general elections, “all stakeholders have a joint obligation to ensure that the CVR is utilized maximally to update and improve upon the voter registration”.