CVR Suspension: Many Nigerians may be disenfranchised in 2023, says IPAC

The Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) in Lagos State says many Nigerians may not have been captured in the INEC Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) that ends nationwide on Sunday.

IPAC chairman in Lagos, Olusegun Mobolaji, said many Nigerians that would be of voting age some months before the election would also be disenfranchised, urging INEC to reconsider ending the registration.

“Irrespective of the fact that INEC had started the voter enrollment exercise in 2021, if the time is not enough for everyone that wants to participate in the election to get registered and obtain a voter card, INEC should not stop registration,” he told reporters on Sunday.

Mr Mobolaji said continuing voter enrollment would not affect every other electoral activity and process put in place by the commission to conduct fair elections.

He suggested that INEC should continue until the voter registration until it becomes glaring that it will be impossible to print voter cards again; we will all know that they have done their best.

“I think voter registration can go simultaneously with every other plan INEC has.

“There should be a way around this, such that everyone that is of voting age is allowed to be able to vote. We still have months until the election.”

Mr Mobolaji said INEC could get more gadgets and personnel to register every eligible citizens who presented themselves for the registration.

According to him, the only way to reposition the country is through the ballot, and every qualified citizen should be allowed to vote in 2023.

He said that the crowd at enrollment centres across the country showed that the time for registration was not enough.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, which started on June 28, 2021, was initially billed to end on June 30, before it was extended to July 31.

As of July 18, those who registered online in Lagos were 640,560, but many of them had not completed their registration, while those who completed the registration exercise were 451 156.

INEC Resident Electoral Commission (REC) in Lagos, Olusegun Agbaje, said on July 24 that current statistics as of July 28 showed that the state had about seven million registered voters.

The REC disclosed that the number was derived from the new registrants so far in the ongoing CVR, added to those in the old register of voters in the state.

(NAN)