Lagos dusts Kano in voters register

Lasun Alagbe
In spite of their usual addiction to work and other existential matters, Lagosians have shown that they are still keen on election matters.
As it happened during last elections, Lagos still maintains lead in the register of voters of Lagos and Kano States still maintain the lead in the voters register of the Independent Electoral Commission.
While INEC said a total 84,004,084 Nigerians would vote in the elections, after carrying out automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) on persons who registered during the continuous voter registration (CVR) exercise, Lagos State accounts for 6, 570,291 million with Kano coming second with 5, 457,747 million voters.
In 2015, Lagos and Kano States recorded 5.8 million and 5.0 million respectively. This represents 11.30% and 8.51% respectively.
Observers will, however, note that the number of people who go out to vote on the election day my be another kettle of fish.
According to a report by ‘The Nation’, the analysis of the voter register presented to the parties by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, however, showed that North West had the highest number of registered voters with over 20.2 million, followed by the South West with 16.3 million voters.
The South East has the least with slightly over 10 million voters. North East recorded 11.3 million; North Central, 13.4 million; and South-South, 12.9 million.
Further analysis showed that male registrants was 44, 405,439 million while female accounted for 39, 598,645 million voters.
Prof. Yakubu disclosed that INEC disclosed that the commission had stayed strictly with the electoral timetable and programme of activities earlier released.
He reassured the party leaders that there was no change in the number of polling units and voting points used for the 2015 general elections and the 2016 Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The INEC boss also denied that the card reader has been enhanced to recapture voters’ fingerprints at polling units and automatically overwrite the biometric record on the commission’s database.
He assured that smart card readers would be used to accredit voters for the 2019 Genyeral elections.
“For clarity, I wish to stress that the function of the smart card reader during accreditation is to confirm, verify and authenticate the voter.
“First, it shall be used to confirm that the PVC is genuine and issued by INEC. Cloned cards or cards that do not match the codes for a particular polling unit in which the voter is registered will be rejected by the card readers.
“Secondly, the card readers shall verify that the voter who presents the PVC is the actual owner of the card by ensuring that the personal details on the card reader are consistent with the manual register for the polling unit.
“Thirdly, the card reader shall be used to authenticate the fingerprint of the voter as an additional confirmatory procedure.
“If the fingerprint is not authenticated by the card reader but the PVC is confirmed as genuine and the voter’s personal details are consistent with the manual register, he/she shall be allowed to vote.”