INEC in Eye of the Storm: Electoral body battles to clean voters’ register – Investigation

By Jide Ajani There is perhaps no greater threat to electoral integrity than an unreliable Voters’ Register. Before the first ballot is cast or the first result announced, the credibility of an election is already being determined by the document that establishes who is entitled to vote. The Voters’ Register is the foundation of the electoral process.

It defines the electorate, determines the numerical strength of constituencies and provides the basis for accreditation and voting. It is, fundamentally, the official record of a people’s democratic membership. Yet, in Nigeria, its credibility remains a persistent source of anxiety. Nigeria has travelled a considerable distance from the largely manual registration arrangements of the 1950s to biometric registration, electronic databases and the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

The 1959 general election, conducted under the Electoral Commission of Nigeria (ECN), had approximately nine million registered voters. Subsequent elections in 1964/65, 1979, 1983 and 1993 exposed different administrative and political challenges associated with voter registration. The Fourth Republic introduced more sophisticated systems, including permanent voter cards, biometric identification and mechanisms for detecting duplicate registrations.

Yet technological advancement has not necessarily translated into greater electoral credibility. A bigger register is not automatically a better register. A digital register is not necessarily reliable, and biometric technology is not beyond manipulation. Consider the fluctuations in registration figures: 73.5 million in 2011, 67.4 million in 2015 and approximately 84 million in 2019.

Such changes do not establish manipulation, since legitimate deletions and corrections occur The real test is fidelity: whether the names represent living, eligible citizens entitled to vote, or whether they are mere AI-generated entities. An electoral commission’s credibility rests not merely on constitutional independence but on demonstrable impartiality, competence and transparency.

Constitutional independence in itself does not guarantee operational independence when the personnel saddled with responsibilities decide to go rogue on the system. When public confidence in INEC declines, virtually every administrative decision becomes vulnerable to suspicion, from voter registration and PVC distribution to accreditation and results management.

This is the distinction between administrative validity and democratic legitimacy. The former concerns compliance with prescribed procedures; the latter concerns whether citizens believe those procedures have produced a trustworthy outcome. The European Union Election Observation Mission’s final report on the 2023 elections identified shortcomings in electoral administration that undermined public confidence.

It also recommended an independent external audit of the Voters’ Register, including physical data checks and an assessment of biometric data quality. This is significant. Concerns about the credibility of Nigeria’s electoral database extend beyond opposition-party allegations. Section 19 of the Electoral Act provides for public display and scrutiny of the Voters’ Register.

INEC is required to designate a seven-day period, not later than 90 days before a general election, for displaying the register at Registration Areas and publishing it on its official website or another designated website. The law also provides for claims and objections concerning improperly included or omitted names. Failure by an INEC official to display or publish the register constitutes an offence under Section 19(5).

Public inspection allows citizens to identify omissions, questionable entries and incorrect transfers. It also enables political parties, civil society organisations and election observers to scrutinise the database before election day. This is democratic quality control, not an administrative favour. A register that is inaccessible, inadequately publicised or concealed behind bureaucratic obstacles defeats the purpose of the law.

INEC cannot be the sole custodian, examiner and final judge of its own database. An INEC source disclosed to Vanguard that the display of the register at wards and online has tremendously helped the commission to identify duplications and other impurities in the register. According to the source, “hundreds of thousands of claims and objections have so far been received by the commission and more are still being expected.

You Page 15 will recall that when the present leadership of the commission took over, we wanted to carry out a revalidation exercise. That exercise would have helped to clean the register in a more seamless manner. But the public outcry against the revalidation forced the hands of commission to abandon the idea. Mind you, we have carried out three phases of continuous voter registration” Vanguard also learnt that the commission is presently on a zonal review