By Nicholas Ojo
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that no fewer than 93.5 million Nigerians will be eligible to participate in the 2023 general election exercise as voters.
This was made known by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu on Wednesday in Abuja during the third quarterly meeting with political parties.
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The INEC boss explained 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 cleanup of the data using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), over 2.78 million were identified and removed as ineligible registrants.
He also noted that 23 INEC registration officers have been identified for severe sanctions having attempted to engage in multiple registration of Nigerians.
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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.
However, the INEC Chairman again declared that the decision to deploy BVAS and IReV for the forthcoming polls was cast in stone.
He said only last week, INEC commenced the training of master trainers on election technology to ensure a seamless process.
He added that from Thursday, INEC will commence the same training at zonal levels and subsequently train all its ad hoc staff for the 176,846 polling units nationwide.