Ahead of the Continuous Voters Registration to commence next week, the Independent National Electoral Commission has said about 20 million prospective voters are being targeted.
Chairman of the Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu made the disclosure on Monday at an interactive session with media executives as part of the sensitisation programme.
He said the registration would be carried out continuously for over a year until the third quarter of 2022.
The INEC Chairman further disclosed that the Commission is introducing a portal to enable eligible Nigerians to commence registration as voters online before completing the exercise physically at designated centres nationwide.
“This is the first time a major exercise of this nature is handled partially online consistent with the Commission’s commitment to continue to deepen the use of technology in the electoral process in Nigeria.”
Professor Yakubu said in view of the displacement of Nigerians from their homes in a certain section of the country occasioned by insurgency and banditry, his Commission has seized the initiative to accommodate Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who might have misplaced their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).
On the creation of additional Polling Units, the INEC Chairman emphasized the need for adequate publicity to ensure that Nigerians were familiar with the PUs before the next general elections.
“The success of the exercise depends to a considerable extent on citizens’ awareness through voter education. There will be new registrants, requests for intra-State and inter-State transfers as well as the replacement of voters’ cards as provided by law.
“Furthermore, with the relocation of voting points to underserved areas as autonomous polling units, there is need for massive publicity so that citizens are familiar with their voting locations well ahead of all forthcoming elections.”
INEC, Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Chidi Nwafor, said any eligible voters who provide false information during the forthcoming CVR would be prosecuted under the nation’s Cybercrime Act 2015.
Speaking while demonstrating the procedure for the proposed online registration and presentation of the new INEC Voter Enrollment Device (IVED), Nwafor said with the new technology, the Commission was determined to curb the menace of multiple registration and involvement of underage in the CVR.
“After undertaking the online pre-registration, that person still has to come to our centre for facial and biometric capture. At this point, we will able to fish out underage registrant. And if that person brings people to force our officials to register him or her, there is still a technology that will enable us to fish out the culprit.”
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