As the Independent National Electoral Commission declared on Wednesday that the voter register had swollen up to 93.5m, its Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, has said that over seven million of the updated registered voters are young people.
This signals a more emphatic youth awareness and participation in the upcoming elections, analysts would say.
Addressing the political parties during their meeting in Abuja, Yakubu stated, “In terms of demographic distribution, 7.2mn new voters or 76.5 per cent are young people between 18-34 years while there is a slightly higher number of female (4.8m or 50.82 per cent) than male (4.6m or 49.18 per cent) voters. In terms of occupation, 3.8m (40.8 per cent) are students.
“The 9,518,188 new voters have been added to the existing register of 84,004,084 voters. The preliminary register of voters in Nigeria now stands at 93,522,272.’’
According to him, in compliance with sections, 19(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act 2022, the hard copies of the register of voters for each registration area and local government area would be displayed and simultaneously published on the commission’s website for two weeks for scrutiny, claims and objections by citizens not later than 90 days to the general election.
ALSO READ: 2023 election will be driven by technology, INEC insists
Further details, including the procedure for filing claims and objections, will be released by the commission next week, he added.
Yakubu said, “Accordingly, in the next few days, the Commission will print 9,352,228 pages of the register. The hard copy will be displayed for each of the 8,809 Registration Areas (wards) and 774 local government areas nationwide while the entire register will be published on our website for claims and objections as required by law.
“The display of the physical register will take place at the designated centres from Saturday, 12th – Friday, 25th November 2022. I would like to appeal to all Nigerians to seize the opportunity of the display to scrutinize the list and help us to clean it up further so that the final register of voters for the 2023 General Election can be compiled and published.”
Yakubu disclosed that the cleanup of register the led to the discovery of 2,780,756 illegal registrants.
