Reps propose absentee voters removal from register

The House of Representatives has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to remove fictitious names and those of dead Nigerians from its voters’ register, describing it as bogus.

“Whoever does not vote in two election cycles back-to-back be deleted from INEC register as non-existing human beings,” the House also resolved.

The House made the resolution at the plenary on Thursday, following the unanimous adoption of a motion of urgent public importance moved by a member, Leke Abejide.

The motion was titled ‘Urgent Need for Independent National Electoral Commission to Develop Mechanism to Clean Up Its System of Dead and Fictitious Registered Voters.’

According to Abejide, INEC’s register is “full of millions of people who are dead and non-existent persons.”

He said, “In the last general elections, it was glaring and crystal clear that people that were long dead had their names still displayed in the voters’ register. Even my own deceased father, who passed on long ago, still had his name displayed on the board.

“Apart from dead voters, there are millions of fictitious voters who do not exist anywhere on this planet earth but have their names on INEC register of voters. It is believed that this came to be as a result of double or multiple registrations by Nigerians who had or have the intention of rigging elections, but with the advent of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, these faceless individuals cannot vote anymore.”

Adopting the motion, the House resolved that “INEC should conduct vigorous public enlightenment for all Nigerians to be much aware of what makes the voters’ register bogus, which is the numbers of dead and fictitious persons.”

The lawmakers also resolved that INEC should develop a mechanism or software application, where families who lost their loved ones can report the demise of a particular Permanent Voter Card number so that it can be duly deleted from the commission’s register, polling unit and ward.

Another resolution was that INEC should include voter verification in its continuous voter registration exercise to identify those on the register who are still alive as well as fish out those with fake registration.

Furthermore, the House mandated its Committee on Electoral Matters to ensure compliance with the resolutions.

INEC had on January 11, 2023, prior to the just-concluded general elections, released the final list of voters for the 2023 general elections. The number of registered voters rose from 84,004,084 in 2019 to 93,469,008 in 2023.