INEC delist over 7,000 individuals from voter register

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the removal of over 7,000 deceased persons from the national voter register across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

Victoria Etta-Messi, INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, revealed that the cleanup exercise was conducted in December 2022 as part of the commission’s efforts to maintain the integrity of the voter register.

She said, “Seven thousand, seven hundred and forty-six deceased persons across the 36 states and the FCT were removed from the National Register of voters as of December 2022.”

Etta-Messi further stated that in its post-2023 election review, there were a total of 12,298,944 new registrants following improved registration process adopted by the commission.

She added, “One major issue is the difficulty in removing deceased persons due to gaps in official death records.

“Problems with official death records continue to make it very difficult for INEC to remove deceased registrants,” Etta-Messi noted.