Some Nigerians have again taken to Twitter to condemn an alleged breach and compromise of voters registration by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC).
In a Twitter trend #OccupyINEC, on Thursday, they alleged that the national register of voters had been compromised as questionable names and other information were noticed in it.
Consequently, they threatened to take over the commission’s offices nationwide on 27 September to express their grievances.
CVR process
INEC had conducted the Continuous Voter Registration nationwide between 28 June 2021 and July 2022.
The electoral body, however, announced on Tuesday that out of the 2.5 million fresh registrants it recorded between 28 June, 2021 and 14 January, 2022, one million of them had been found to be invalid and it was considering delisting them from the register.
The Commission’s spokesperson, Festus Okoye said it detected several double, multiple, and ineligible registrants and that a thorough process was being undertaken to clean up the registration data.
Questionable information
In the Twitter trend #OccupyINEC, one of the affected registrants said:
“@inecnigeria is an evil organisation and we need to call these people out. I never finished my pvc registration yet here is my name with an old man’s face. Who knows how many identities they’ve stolen! Please guys let’s get this out there
“@inecnigeria can you explain why on earth you are using my identity?! What sort of nonsense is this?! This is my name and my birthday with the picture of a man who I don’t know?! What is this?!” she said in her tweet.
A popular youth activist, Rinu Oduala, also asked the commission to explain this discrepancy in registration.
“Can @inecnigeria explain this discrepancy in registration?
“Who owns the picture on this young woman’s registration? #OccupyINEC,” she tweeted.
Another user, Judith Akatugba, lent her support for a planned protest across INEC offices in the country to get clarity on the allegations levelled against staffers of the INEC.
“We cannot be guiled! I’m in full support of #occupyINEC to demand for clarity regarding the allegations in the public, total sanitisation of the system, rigid transparency and above all, prosecution of the corrupt INEC officials within the next 30 days. Enough is enough.”
Daniel Tangale urged Nigerians to get camp beds, mats and blankets ready to storm the commission’s offices on the day of the protest.
Stolen Identity?
In what she described as a stolen identity, one MJ (@PhraserPrime), using her personal account, asked INEC to explain how her name got ‘switched’ in the voters register.
On the voter register in circulation, the name and other bio-data information of the 20-year-old Ms MJ – Adesina-Paul, Monijesu Jesutofunmi, bear the passport photographs of an unknown old man.
Ms Monijesu (MJ) said she did not finish her registration before the closure of Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) and wondered how her name made it to the INEC registered voters list.
CUPP’s claims
On Wednesday, a group, Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), corroborated the claims by some of the registrants planning the protest.
At a press conference in Abuja, the group alleged that the voters register had been compromised and that it could lead to the manipulation of the 2023 general elections.
In the copies of portions of the voters register it shared with journalists, there were some mismatched data and passport photographs of many potential voters ahead of the 2023 general elections.
In the document, pictures of male registered voters bear names of female voters and vice-versa. In particular, pictures of male adults, presumably in their 50s were inserted into bio-data of female electorate who were born in the 1990s.
There are also notable names who are arguably not Nigerians by birth, marriage or naturalisation, and should thereby not be found on the eligible voters list of people in different wards and polling units across Oru-East and Ideato-South part of Imo State.
The dates of birth of some of the names on the voters list are as far back as 1900, 14 years before the amalgamation of Nigeria.
Repeated efforts by PREMIUM TIMES to speak with Mr Okoye on the allegations were unsuccessful as he did not answer calls to his mobile telephone.
PREMIUM TIMES
