House to INEC: Develop Mechanism for Removing Dead, Fictitious Names from Voters’ Register

Udora Orizu in Abuja

The House of Representatives, has tasked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to develop a mechanism to clean up its system (voters register) of dead and fictitious registered voters.

The lawmakers specifically urged the electoral body to design a software application, where families, who lost their loved ones could report the demise of a particular Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) number so that it could be duly deleted from the commission’s register, polling unit, and ward.
They further asked INEC to include voter verification during Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) to identify those on the register, who are still alive as well as fish out those with fake registration.

The House reached these resolutions, when it adopted a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Hon. Leke Abejide at yesterday’s plenary.
Moving the motion, Abejide said INEC’s register was full of millions of people who were dead and non-existent.
The lawmaker noted that in the last general election, it was glaring and crystal clear that people that were long dead had their names still displayed in the voters’ register.

According to Abejide, even his own deceased father, who passed on long ago still had his name displayed on the board (voter’s register).
“Apart from dead voters, there are millions of fictitious voters, who do not exist anywhere on this planet earth but have their names on INEC register of voters. It is believed that this came to being as a result of double or multiple registration by Nigerians, who had or have intention of rigging elections but with the advent of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS), these faceless individuals can no longer vote anymore.”

Adopting the motion, the House urged that whoever does not vote in two election cycles back to back be deleted from INEC register as non-existing human beings and mandated the Committee on Electoral Matters to ensure compliances.