JAGISTS

For engaging in multiple registrations of voters during the last voters’ listing exercise, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has commenced the in-house sanctioning of 23 officials.

The records of the commission showed that some of the 23 officials attempted to register some fake voters 40 times, INEC National Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed yesterday during the third quarterly meeting with political parties, in Abuja.

Ahead of next year’s general election, the electoral umpire also declared that no fewer than 93.5 million Nigerians are eligible to participate in the exercise as voters, noting that 12.29 million Nigerians successfully completed their registrations as new voters in the just concluded Continuous Voter Registration CVR.

Yakubu added that after a rigorous clean-up of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System, ABIS, over 2.78 million were identified and removed as ineligible registrants.

Consequently, he said the commission has identified 23 of its registration officers for severe sanctions having attempted to engage in multiple registrations of Nigerians

Yakubu’s disclosures came as the Inter-Party Advisory Council IPAC passed a vote of confidence on him for his innovations to reshape the electoral process.

The political parties specifically hailed the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and the INEC Result Viewing IReV Portal in the recently concluded elections in the country and for next year’s general election.