The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says visibly underage persons who attempt to vote during the 2023 elections will be arrested.

Festus Okoye, INEC national commissioner for information and voter education, said this on Monday during an interview on ‘The Morning Show’, a programme by Arise Television.

Okoye said in an effort to address issues around underage registration, INEC has summoned all its officers in areas where underage registrations were recorded.

“They will appear before a special panel of the commission and it is still ongoing. We have also made it very clear that any visibly underage person should not on any account, approach any of our polling units on election day, because if the person does, the person will definitely be arrested,” he said.

The parents will also be arrested for aiding and abetting such a venture.”

Speaking further, Okoye said the clean-up of the voters’ register is ongoing, adding that Nigerians would be pleased with the end result.

“Some of the data you saw on social media about underage registration were some registrations that took place from 2011 to before the 2019 election,” he said.

This commission had the courage to publish the entire register of voters and ask Nigerians to also check to ensure no malicious registrations have gone into our voters’ register.

“So, we have harvested all the claims and objectives and are cleaning up the voters’ register. We assure Nigerians, that the voters’ register we are going to go into the 2023 general election with will be one they will be proud of.

‘As of today, the voters’ register is hovering around 93.5 million registered voters. On January 16, the commission will publish the official register that will be used for 2023 elections.”

lhordspy:
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lhordspy:
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lhordspy:
Nice one from INEC.The menace have to stop. I remember how the PDP controlled government made use of these political tools in the deep North and SouthEast in 2003, 2007, and especially 2011. Where states like Abia, Anambra, Imo pulled over 1million + votes for PDP.

Now we have started seeing traces of it again this time around, orchestrated by a political clown that crossover from PDP to Labour party of recent.

INEC website shows how Buhari benefitted from manual voting in 2015.Figures obtained from the website of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have confirmed the extent of manual voting in the 2015 presidential election.

According to a report on the commission’s website, the All Progressives Congress (APC) got most of the votes cast without bio-metric verification during the election.The report confirms an earlier analysis by TheCable on the voting statistics.

According to the report, 13,536,311 votes were cast manually during the 2015 presidential poll, representing 42.6 percent of the 31,746,490 accredited voters.

Of that number, the INEC report showed 10,184,720 votes representing 75 percent of the total votes cast were from states won by Muhammadu Buhari, then presidential candidate of the APC, while 3,351,591 votes representing 25 percent came from states won by Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Data from INEC

The report also showed that 10 states mostly affected by manual voting include Kebbi, Zamfara, Niger, Bauchi, Plateau, Kaduna, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto and Kano: the APC won in nine of the states.

CONTROVERSIES, SHOCK

The initial story published by TheCable regarding the issue was received with both shock and controversy.
While some doubted the authenticity of the report and argued it was fabricated, others expressed disbelief, especially considering the lingering controversy on the use of card readers.

Tolu Ogunlesi, a presidential aide, had said the data as reported appears to have been fabricated while Ayo Obe, a legal practitioner, said she learnt the data did not come from INEC.Excerpts from his tweets and other people who initially doubted the report:

@toluogunlesi
" The data that @DeepDiveNG used to ‘generate’ that ‘Report’ appears to have been fabricated. But all sorts of people have been gleefully quoting it, including @I_Am_Ilemona on @ChannelsTV.I would like to know: Who’s behind @DeepDiveNG? Didn’t see any names/faces on their website.

Ayo Obe @naijama
Things I learnt while at The Electoral Institute yesterday:
1. That report about @MBuhari getting 75% of his votes in 2015 from areas where card readers were not used did not come from @inecnigeria or its data.
2. INEC will use #PVC #CardReaders in all the 2019 elections.

Kayode Ogundamisi @ogundamisi
." @thecableng please next time conduct your own investigation or verify before you publish.You could have easily contacted @inecnigeria for verification. 
Especially info from a website registered in 2018. Please don't be a victim of #FakeNews victim of PDP #AtikuDubaiStrategy pic.twitter.com/VMheuh9tAC"
12:43 PM - Dec 14, 2018

But data from the commission has now laid all that to rest.When contacted by TheCable on Friday, Rotimi Oyekanmi, chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, declined to comment.

tiswell:
nor be for mouth


implement it,especially northerners

lhordspy:
Nice one from INEC.

The menace have to stop. I remember how the PDP controlled government made use of these political tools in the deep North and SouthEast in 2003, 2007, and especially 2011. Where states like Abia, Anambra, Imo pulled over 1million + votes for PDP.

Now we have started seeing traces of it again this time around, orchestrated by a political clown that crossover from PDP to Labour party of recent.

lhordspy:


https://www.thecable.ng/visibly-underage-persons-who-attempt-to-vote-will-be-arrested-says-inec/amp