INEC deletes 7,746 dead people from voter register, cites challenges of getting accurate number of those no longer alive
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Up to 7,746 dead people were deleted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) voter register North and South in 2022, the Commission has disclosed but highlighted the challenges of inadequate logistics to ensure an accurate number of those no longer alive.
“Seven thousand, seven hundred and forty-six decreased persons across the 36 states and the FCT were removed from the National Register of voters as of December 2022,” INEC Voter Education and Publicity Director Victoria Etta-Messi told The PUNCH.
She said a thorough cleaning of the voter register is usually done before every general election.
INEC in its 2023 post-general election review in December 2024 highlighted challenges with cleaning up the voter register despite improvements in voter registration that added 12,298,944 new registrants.
“Problems with official death records continue to make it very difficult for INEC to remove deceased registrants,” the Commission said.
It also identified the problem of double or multiple registrations, which was addressed by deploying the Automated Biometric Identification System.
It said the new system flagged and removed 2,780,756 cases of invalid registrations, representing 22.6 per cent of all new registrants nationwide.
INEC noted concerns about declining voter turnout, citing how 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections had a turnout of 27.5 percent, down from 35.6 per cent in 2019.
Some stakeholders at the review attributed the decline partly to an inflated voter register and demanded more rigorous efforts to clean up the voter register.
INEC noted that “One suggestion from this review was to strengthen collaboration with other agencies such as NIMC [National Identity Management Commission] and NPC [National Population Commission] to identify deceased persons in the register and remove them.
“In addition, the Commission could suspend individuals who have not voted in the past three elections from the register and request them to revalidate their registration.”
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