Looming Disenfranchisement for Intending Voters
Sunday Ehigiator
In this report, writes that the massive deregistration of newly registered voters, uncollected Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs, and the delays by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in issuing the PVCs to registered voters as experienced in several quarters, and even the recent burning of about 65,000 PVCs in Ogun State, are some of the factors capable of disenfranchising voters at the February 2023 General Elections
In less than 100 days, eligible voters will decide the leadership fate of the country in what has been said to be a three-horse race. According to INEC, the elections are expected to cost the nation at least N305 billion and would be decided by 93.5 million registered voters among which youth accounts for over 65 per cent.
The winner would have a four-year mandate to lead a distressed nation struggling with high unemployment figures, biting poverty, insecurity, rising inflation, crude oil theft, high unemployment rate, dwindling revenues, high debt burden, dwindling economy and industrial (trade union) crises among others.
It will be the first time in the country’s seventh consecutive general election since its return to the democratic system of government in 1999, heralding 23 years of uninterrupted democracy that youth have shunned voter apathy to register for their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).
Unfortunately, this zeal from the youth is about to wane considering the volume of uncollected voter’s cards, the large number of deregistered voters and several unsuccessful efforts by most newly registered voters to collect their PVCs, instilling a fear of disenfranchisement.
Surge in Youth Interest
Earlier in September, the commission had said there was a recent surge in youth turnout for the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, leading to over 2 million new voters in one month and cumulatively a total of 12,298,944 newly registered voters.
A total of 2,780,756 representing 22.6 per cent, were later identified as ineligible registrants and invalidated from the records, citing double/multiple registrants, underage persons and outright fake registrations as reasons for the deregistration, hence, thereby reducing the number to 9,518,188 newly registered with youth accounting for 4.6 million or 49.18 per cent of the number.
From the above analogy, it is crystal clear that the youth represents the largest demographic of registered voters with over 54 million registered voters, leaving candidates running for political offices in the forthcoming elections to essentially depend on the support of young people if they must win.
Unfortunately, it appears that the strength of the youth and the entire voting population may have been clipped by strategic actions or inactions of the electoral umpire ranging from irregularities in the voter's register to several uncollected PVCs discovered in places they ought not to be.
Also is the delay in collection of newly registered PVCs, large the amount of deregistered voters believed to be politically motivated, and the fear of harassment by loyalists of opposition parties in the state with varying ethnic, religious and political sentiments.
Concerns over Deregistered Voters
In recent weeks, there has been increased discontent among stakeholders, particularly in Southern Nigeria on the large number of invalid registered voters released by INEC from the region, ahead of the 2023 general election.
The Commission had said the invalid registrants were detected after it applied the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) data cleaning exercise.
INEC has come under heavy criticism from stakeholders and political leaders in the South since the final figure of voters was announced for the 2023 general election.
They accused the commission of showing favouritism in the registration of voters ahead of next year’s polls and working to disadvantage the region’s voting strength, particularly the South-South and South-East.
In its final assessment of the continuous voter registration exercise, INEC said Bayelsa, Ebonyi and Rivers top the list of states with the highest number of invalid registered voters.
The data shows that 59. 8 per cent of the total
new registrants were delisted in the South-East state.
Although Nigeria’s voter population increased by 9,518,188, a total of 2,780,756 were consequently delisted from 12,298,944 new voters who completed the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise.
Interestingly, the South-South state of Bayelsa, which is one of the states with the smallest voter population in the country, led the chart of invalid registered voters with a total of 307,513 voters deregistered from the 444,652 new registrants that completed their CVR.
This means 69.2 per cent of the people that participated in the exercise committed one of the infractions frowned upon by the electoral body.
Ebonyi State took the second spot as only 161,447 registrants satisfactorily scaled INEC’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) data cleaning exercise out of the 401,510 registrants who completed the registration.
Also, Rivers had 33 per cent of its total CVR registered voters deregistered after the INEC data cleaning phase.
The valid new voters in Abia were 196,683 while 72,657 have been declared invalid. At least 61,261 of the 243,565 total registered voters in Enugu were also invalid according to the INEC data.
In the South West, the total registration was 2,039,982, while invalid 399,608 representing 10 per cent of the number were deregistered, leaving a valid voter number of 1,640,374, and a total voters register of 17.5 million.
This is a sharp contrast to the figure in the North, where states like Zamfara,
Kwara, Abuja, Plateau and Kaduna recorded the lowest percentage of invalid registration. For example, of the 238,649 new registrants in Zamfara, only 11.2 per cent were invalid.
In North Central, the total registration stood at 2,314,368, while a total of 345,324, representing 14.9 per cent newly registered, were invalidated, leaving 1,969,044 valid voters and a total voter register of 15 million.
Total registration in the North East stood at 1,531,070, invalid voters, 272,508, representing 17.8 per cent, leaving a valid voters number of 1,258,562, and a total of 12.5 million registered voters.
The total number of registration stood at 12,298,944, invalid 2,780,756, (22.6 per cent), valid 9,518,188, while the total register is 93.5 million.
Mixed Reactions Trail Voters Deregistration
The development has left many wondering how the zones with high literacy rates will record more invalid registration than the Northern parts of the country with lower literacy rates.
In his reaction, the President of Middle Belt Forum, Pogu Bitrus said he would not know how INEC arrived at the figures, saying other reasons apart from double registration could have informed what happened.
“Certainly, in this country today, we have so many foreigners; the majority of hawkers in Abuja and other parts of Nigeria are from Niger Republic and Chad and this may have increased the Northwest number of registrants.”
He, however, urged those whose registrations had been cancelled in the South East and Southsouth to come out if they know that they were duly registered, and testify that they have been short-changed and that INEC is being partial.
Meanwhile, some stakeholders are saying that a thorough analysis of the reasons for the invalidation of PVCs must be undertaken; they say those that can be remedied, must be given a chance as the objective must be to get all eligible voters to register.
A Twitter user identified as @Gifted_Gift stated, “The invalid voters' registration is worrisome. @inecnigeria has not given any tangible reason why about 2 million registrations are invalid; something needs to be done about it.
“No one should be disenfranchised, as 2023 is critical to Nigerians. It's a vote for survival!”
Another user, Olatunji Shinaayomi wrote, “I think there is a little justification for been high invalid registration considering Hope Uzodinma paid INEC staff to put fake registration in the system. Let us keep calm. With or without this new registration Nigerians are ready to take back their country from hoodlums.”
Another user, Abel Aboh asked, “How can there even be invalid or duplicate registrations when we are using technology? I expect that once a person's fingerprints are scanned if those prints have been registered before, the system is supposed to show a message that the person has already been registered.
“I believe the loophole was left by INEC so they can carry out multiple registrations to rig elections. There are a lot of people who have two or more PVCs and they vote with all of them on Election Day.”
Basi Azubuike wrote, “The south, particularly the South East and South-South, are being rigged out (disenfranchised) by the electoral body even before the elections. Look at the numbers of registrants disqualified without a transparent reason.”
While Ezeh Victor wrote, “@inecnigeria denied so many of us access to PVC registration. Those of us who struggled to register are now being invalidated by the same INEC. We can't take this.”
Irregularities in the Voters Register
The recently released voters’ register by INEC has been marred by several irregularities ranging from appearances of strange names and images of underage voters to multiple registrations believed to have taken place during the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR).
After the closure of the CVR, INEC said the entire preliminary register containing 93,522,272 registrants will be published for 2 weeks on its portal, from November 12 to 25.
In September, INEC said it detected many double, multiple and ineligible registration in the CVR. The commission added that after a rigorous clean-up of the data using the ABIS, 2,780,756 registrants were identified as ineligible and were deleted from the register.
The commission said about 23 of its officers were found culpable in aiding the double
INEC, what is going on? How do you have little children registered? Children that you see that are barely 10, you register them, and you say they were born (in) 1992. Do you know the meaning of 1992? That was 30 years ago. And you put some little children that are not up to 12 years, how did you register them, how come? When they entered the office, didn’t you see that these were kids?