The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed that it registered 93,469,008 voters for the 2023 general elections.
This is even as the Commission stressed that it was not contemplating any adjustment of the election timetable, let alone the postponement of the general elections.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Commission reiterated that the Presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on Saturday, February 25, 2023 while Governorship and State Assembly elections will hold two weeks later on Saturday, March 11, 2023.
It stressed that the repeated assurance by the security agencies for the adequate protection of INEC personnel, materials, and processes also reinforced its determination to proceed, adding that the 2023 general elections will hold as scheduled.
The electoral body, however, said any report to the contrary was not the official position of the Commission.
The nation’s electoral body disclosed that after the cleaning up of its data from the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise (June 2021 – July 2022), 9,518,188 new voters were added to the previous register resulting in the preliminary register of 93,522,272, which was presented to Nigerians for claims and objections as required by law.
However, at the end of the period for claims and objections by citizens, the Commission said it received 53,264 objections from Nigerians to the prevalence of ineligible persons on the register by virtue of age, citizenship, or death.
The chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at the presentation of the National Register of Voters to Political Parties on Wednesday.
Yakubu said the 53,264 names have been verified and removed from the register.
Consequently, the INEC chairman said the final list of registered voters stands at 93,469,008.
Of this cumulative figure, he said 49,054,162 (52.5 per cent) are male while 44,414,846 (47.5 per cent) are female.
According to him, the distribution by age group shows that 37,060,399 (39.65 per cent) are youth between the ages of 18 and 34; 33,413,591 (35.75 per cent) are middle aged persons between the ages of 35 and 49; 17,700,270 (18.94 per cent) are elderly voters between the ages of 50 and 69 while 5,294,748 (5.66 per cent) are senior citizens aged 70 and above.
He said, “In terms of occupational distribution, students constitute the largest category with 26,027,481 (27.8 per cent) of all voters, followed by 14,742,554 (15.8 per cent) Farmers/Fishermen and 13,006,939 (13.9 per cent) housewives.”
