Why dead Nigerians’ names are still on voter register

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said the inability of the commission to get adequate data on death in the country has hindered it from removing names of dead Nigerians from the voter register.

He added that INEC had been periodically removing ineligible persons and multiple registrants using technology but the technology cannot assist the commission to identify and remove dead persons from its record.

Yakubu said this when he received the Chairman of the National Population Commission, Nasir Kwarra, at the headquarters of the commission in Abuja on Friday.

He, however, called on the NPC to ensure that data on dead persons in the country is made available to the commission for a proper clean up of the voter register.

He said, “Perhaps you may wish to start by availing us with the list of prominent Nigerians who have passed on, civil and public servants compiled from the official records of government Ministries, Departments and Agencies and other Nigerians from hospital and funeral records across the country.

“We appreciate that this is a herculean task but that is partly why we have the National Population Commission. We are confident that the NPC has the capacity to do so. This information is critical for INEC to enhance the credibility of the National Register of Voters”.

According to Yakubu, the NPC and INEC have embarked on one of the most imaginative and extensive inter-agency collaborations in Nigeria in the area of delimitation of boundaries of electoral constituencies.

Earlier, Kwarra said the NPC was awaiting the approval of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to conduct a national census by the first quarter of 2022.

According to him, the Enumeration Area Demarcation exercise which is a prelude to a national census was still ongoing, adding that INEC aims to complete the enumeration by October.

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