PVC: INEC projects 95million voters for 2023 elections

The ongoing Continuous Voters Registration would officially end on July 31, 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission said on Friday.

The commission announced the extension after deliberations on some concerns around the exercise among other issues.

INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, made the announcement in a statement in Abuja.

According to him, the commission was projecting 95 million voters for the 2023 poll.

Okoye said the commission took the decision following a judgment delivered by the Federal High Court on Wednesday, July 13, 2022 in which it dismissed the suit filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project which was seeking an extension of the exercise beyond June 2022.

The commission had previously extended the June 30 deadline but did not stipulate when the exercise will officially end.

Okoye however said the Court had now affirmed that INEC was at liberty to appoint a date of its choice to suspend the CVR provided it was not later than 90 days before the date fixed for the general election as provided in Section 9(6) of the Electoral Act 2022.

He said with the judgment of the Federal High Court, all legal encumbrances had been removed.

He said, “In compliance with the interim injunction of the court pending the determination of the substantive suit, and in order to enable more Nigerians to register, the commission continued with the CVR beyond June 30, 2022. For this reason, the CVR has already been extended beyond June 30, 2022 for a period of 15 days.

‘’With the judgment of the Federal High Court, all legal encumbrances have now been removed. Accordingly, the Commission has taken the following decisions:

‘’The CVR is hereby extended for another two weeks until Sunday July 31 2022, thereby bringing the total duration of the extension to 31 days (1st – 31st July 2022).

‘’The exercise has also been extended to eight hours daily from 9.00am – 5.00pm instead of the current duration of six hours (9.00am – 3.00pm) daily; and the exercise is also extended to include weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) as against only weekdays.’’

Okoye said although the timeframe might be tight for many prospective registrants, there was a lot that the Commission was required to do under the electoral legal framework in relation to voter registration and compilation of the register that will require time to accomplish.

He said the commission would undertake clean-up of the register to remove multiple registrants using the Automated Biometric Identification System.