THE House of Representatives on Wednesday mandated the committee on Electoral and Political Party Matters to investigate the non-compliance of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with the provisions of the electoral act on continuous voters registration exercise.
The Committee was given four weeks to report back to the House for further legislative action.
The House resolution followed a motion moved by Hon. Benjamin Okolo, entitled, “need to investigate the breach of the Electoral Act, 2010 by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Continuous Voters Registration, CVR”.
According to him, “the CVR is a global best practice and electoral standard which allows for regular update of the National Register of Voters with the data of persons who attain the age of 18 years”.
The lawmaker explained that, Section 10 (1) which states that without prejudice to Section 10 (5), there shall be continuous registration of all persons qualified to be registered voters.
The lawmaker added that, the provisions of Section 10 (3) of the Electoral Act that the commission shall, within 60 days after each year, make available to every political party, the names and addresses of each person registered during that year.
According to him, “the number of Nigerians who turned 18 years between 2011 and 2015 was 24, 346,157, but only about 9,913,398 of them were registered and captured as eligible voters by 2015, amounting to only 40 percent of the total number of Nigerian that turned 18 years within the period
“The number of registered voters increased only minimally from 58,920,078 in 2011 to 68,833,476, representing only 17 percent increase from 2011 to 2015 in aggregate of all states in Nigeria”.
The INEC he added has, over the years, been breaching the provisions of the Electoral Act on continuous voter registration by failing to comply with the law or has deliberately been neglecting its mandate in that regard.
He also maintained that, despite repeated demands and appeals by Nigerians, INEC has failed to put in place measures to guarantee continuous voters registration exercise across the country.
To this end, he said that, the problem of breach of the electoral act on continuous voters’ registration would persist, unless INEC adopts a full implementation of the continuous voter’s registration as provided by the Electoral Act, 2010.
The motion was supported by members when it was put to vote by the Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara.
Nigerian Tribune recall that, the Chairman, INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, had while briefing news men last week had said that the Continuous Voter Registration would begin across the country, in April this year.
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