In recent publications of International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law, we held that the Nigeria’s National Register of Voters; Nigeria’s ground foundation for its democratic elections, is grossly tainted and sectionalized under the midwifery of the Independent National Electoral Commission headed by Prof Attahiru Jega. The National Register of Voters is tainted because it lacks purity and accuracy of data and administrative management. It is also filled with names and objects that are foreign and alien to the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 and the Electoral Act of Nigeria 2010 such as under-age registered voters and illegal immigrants registered as voters. This gross sharp practice is common and arbitrary in the Northwest and the Northeast geop
On the other hand, the referenced Voters’
Register is grossly sectionalized
because there is a deliberate policy put in place by the headship of INEC
designed to oust and cripple the voting numerical strength and rights of some
federating partners in the Federal Republic of Nigeria so as to give others
strategic advantage. This includes capturing as much Northern Muslim population
as possible as registered voters including under-aged and suppressing
as much Southern Igbo and other minority populations as possible as
disenfranchised and un-registered voters.
From blatant refusal of the headship of INEC
to capture and incorporate millions of Igbo IDPs resident in the North, who
fled to the South; into ongoing IDPs voting policy of INEC or Voters’
Cards Transfer; to suspicious, random and arbitrary deletion from the
National Register of Voters of a large number of referenced Igbo residents in
the North in the form of double registrants. Others are clear
unwillingness and inability of the Commission to capture as much adult Igbo
citizens as possible as registered voters during various continuous
voters’ registration exercises across the country and deliberate policy across
the country by INEC and criminal third parties designed to deny Igbo citizens
and other minority populations access to their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) through
INEC’s
data loss; defacing, stealing,
destroying, impersonating and hoarding by criminal third parties in
collaboration with malicious INEC staff, of PVCs belonging to Igbo
citizens; as well as stringent procedures put in place by INEC designed to
frustrate Igbo citizens and other minority populations from accessing their PVCs alongside
other Nigerians.
2010/2011 National Voters’
Registration & Its Electronic (AFIS) Certification
After the referenced general
voters’ registration exercise carried out by INEC under Prof Attahiru Jega, the
Commission announced a provisional registration of 67.7million Nigerians
as provisionally registered voters subject to full electronic certification and
other processes. On Thursday, 3rd of March 2011, INEC released
another raw figure of 73, 528, 040 as total registered voters. This figure
remained raw and unprocessed, except Cross River State, which subjected its raw
figure to automated fingerprint identification system and brought it down from
1.7m registered voters to 1.14m registered voters then.
Owing to the closeness of the
2011 General Elections held in April and other related factors, the unprocessed
figure of 73, 528, 040 registered voters was allowed and used. After the
General Polls of 2011, the Commission subjected the referenced figure to
automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS), which brought the figure
down from 73, 528, 040 registered voters to 70, 383, 427 post AFIS registered
voters. It is important to remind that the latter figure has been in official
use by INEC as Nigeria’s post AFIS registered voters (70, 383, 427 ) until
November/December 2014. In other words, the total number of post AFIS
registered voters for the country as at 2014 was 70, 383, 427.
For the avoidance of doubt, AFIS or
Automated
Fingerprint Identification System is a demographically configured
computer application meant to identify and weed out registered voters who
conscionably or unconscionably engage in multiple registrations and other sharp
registration processes. When AFIS process is successfully applied, the figures usually
go down after the unwanted figures are weeded or cleaned up.
It is in view of the foregoing
that we decided to take a second forensic look into the National Register of
Voters managed by INEC particularly as it concerns the marked inexplicable
difference between the Commission’s 2014 figure of 70, 383, 427 registered
voters and the early 2015 figure of 68, 833, 476. The referenced difference is
1, 543, 961. Part of our thorough investigation is to also find out the number
of newly registered voters captured by the Commission during recent continuous
voters’ registration exercises across the country and their State-by-State
representation. The ground intent behind our noble enquiries is to ensure open,
transparent, credible and non sectional or tribal management of the National
Register of Voters by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
In the second part of this
publication of ours, it will be revealed statistically how Prof Attahiru Jega
led INEC deleted in two months (November/December 2014) a total of 3, 796, 767
registered voters from the National Register of Voters. These INEC tagged “pre
AFIS double/multiple registrants”. We also discovered that a total of 2, 130,
502 registered voters were captured by the Commission across the country in
2014 during its continuous voters’ registration exercises. The Commission’s
claims that the affected deleted registered voters were deleted from the
National Register of Voters following its 2011 post automated fingerprint
identification system were found by our thorough investigation to be grossly
unsubstantiated, illogical and contradictory.
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, B.Sc. (Hons.) Criminology & Security Studies
Board Chairman, International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
+2348174090052(office)
Uzochukwu Oguejiofor, Esq., (LLB, BL), Head, Campaign & Publicity
Department
Obianuju Igboeli, Esq., (LLB,
BL), Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
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