The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reported that over 2.5 million Nigerians have completed their online voter pre-registration since the nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise began on Aug. 18.
This is contained in an update on the online and in-person registration exercise released by Mr Sam Olumekun, the National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, after the regular meeting held on Tuesday in Abuja.
Olumekun also said that no fewer than 72,274 citizens participated in the in-person registration within five days.
He appreciated the positive response of citizens and the efforts of the organisations that had mobilised civic participation in the exercise.
“The cumulative figure at the end of week two shows that 1,218,482 (48.12 per cent) are male and 1,313,580 (51.88 per cent) are female.
“In terms of age and occupation, the majority – 1,602,484 (63.29 per cet) are between the ages of 18 and 34, while 647,528 (25.57 per cent) are students,” he said.
For the in-person registration which began on Aug. 25, Olumekun said that as at Friday, Aug. 29, a total 72,274 citizens had either completed the pre-registration process or registered afresh within five days.
He noted that out of the figure, 35,622 (49.29 per cent) were male and 36,652 (50.71 per cent) were female.
“In terms of age and occupation, majority of them – 54,718 (75.71 per cent) – are between the ages of 18 and 34, while 30,953 (42.83 per cent) are students,” he said.
Olumekun reiterated that the pre-registration figures was from the commission’s dedicated CVR portal.
He said that the introduction of the pre-registration option in 2021 had enabled Nigerians to commence the online process from anywhere in the world 24 hours a day including weekends.
He urged all online pre-registrants to appear physically to complete the process at INEC 811 State and Local Government offices nationwide where their fingerprints and facial biometric details would be captured, without which the online process would be invalid.
“The Commission is aware that there are Nigerians who have no access to online facilities or those who prefer to register in-person.
“Consequently, our staff have been deployed to attend to eligible citizens at the Commission’s 811 State and Local Government offices nationwide where they can simultaneously begin and complete their registration.
“The centres are open from 9am – 3pm daily (Monday to Friday),” he said
Olumekun said that the list and addresses of the centres had already been made public.
He stated that the graphic details of the distribution of registrants for both online and in-person by state, gender, age, occupation and disability had been uploaded to INEC website and other official platforms for public information.
