Final figures of eligible voters for the April elections released by the Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday showed that the population of registrants have jumped from the provisional 67.7 million issued last week to 73 million.


INEC released the figure in Abuja, which also showed that a total of 870,612 persons were involved in double registration.


INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, told newsmen in Abuja that the increase arose from an error of calculation by its personnel.


He said, “It is evident that the figures before were incomplete; we put our people under pressure. Most of the figures that had been provided for us provisionally were actually incomplete.”


He assured that duplications had been removed, adding that copies of the voter register would be made available to party chairmen or their representatives on hard disks. Jega noted that printing it on paper would be cumbersome because millions of pieces of paper would be required.


Figures of Benue and Niger State were significantly increased. Niger State, which had protested its provisional figure of 721,485 voters and threatened to sue INEC, had its figure adjusted to 2,175,421. But unlike Niger State, Lagos State’s voter figure dropped to 6,108,069 from 6,247,845.


This means that the state had 139,776 as double registrants, instead of the 13,932 on INEC’s list, which does not add up. Other states with higher figures are Katsina 3.1m from 2.9 million; Delta, two million from 1.9m; Benue, 2.3 million from 1.4 million; Bauchi, 2.5 million from 1.4 million; Anambra, two million as against 1.7 million; Jigawa, two million from 1.8 million; Kaduna 3.9 million as against 3.5 million.


Others are Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Federal Capital Territory, Gombe, Imo and Plateau with 2.2 million from 1.9m. On states with double registration, Niger topped the list with 142,040, followed by Lagos with 139,776 and Katsina 132,062.


On the contrary, the FCT recorded the lowest figure of 953 double registrants.


Despite anomalies across the 36 states and Abuja, Lagos State still maintained its lead with 6,108,069, followed by Kano State with 5,027,297 voters and Kaduna State with 3,905,387. But the bottom three states are FCT, 943,473; Bayelsa 591,870; and Ekiti, 764,726.


Jega said, “With this (final figure), I can now say that in compliance with the provisions of the law, I have certified the register for the elections.”


Consequently, he announced that chairmen of political parties were free to collect copies of the voter register from Tuesday. INEC had on Wednesday said it would begin the prosecution of double registrants.


Jega, who spoke at a forum in Abuja, said unnamed prominent Nigerians were involved in the misconduct.


Meanwhile, in a zonal breakdown, the North-West now has 19,803,689 as against 18,900,543 while the North-Central has jumped from 7.6 million to 10.6 million. The zone comprises Benue, Kwara, Plateau, Kogi, Niger and Nasarawa states.


South-West moved from 14, 298, 356 to 14,296,163; North-East from 10,038, 119 to 10, 749,059; South-South from 8,937,057 to 9, 465,427; South-East from 7,028,560 to 7, 577,212; and FCT from 886,323 to 943,473.

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