By Chimezie Godfrey
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appealed to all eligible Nigerians to participate in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) excercise.
The Commission made the appeal on Wednesday via a statement signed by its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye.
Okoye said that the Commission over the last four weeks, has been giving Nigerians weekly updates on the online registration of voters under the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise which commenced on 28th June 2021, adding that last week, the in-person (or physical) registration commenced nationwide.
According to him, eligible citizens who initiated their registration online and those who prefer to register in-person abinitio had the opportunity to do so in the Commission’s State and LGA offices nationwide.
He explained that from this week, the Commission will be giving weekly updates on both the online pre-registration and the completed physical registration.
He therefore, disclosed that the two-page update released in the previous weeks has been upgraded to four pages to provide Nigerians with additional information on completed registration.
Moreso, he revealed that as at 4pm on Tuesday 3rd August 2021, the number of fresh online pre-registrants is now 1,377,733 while 120,600 citizens have completed their physical registration since the exercise commenced on Monday 26th July 2021.
He also disclosed that that the detailed distribution of the registrants by age, State/FCT, occupation, gender, type of registration and disability has been uploaded to the Commission’s website and social media platforms.
Okoye further revealed that young Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 34 are still leading in both online registration (1,074,260 or 65%) and completed registration (84,619 or 70%). In terms of occupation, students are leading in both pre-registration (529,219 or 32%) and completed registration (48,897 or 41%). For gender distribution, 940,062 (or 57%) are male and 717,504 (or 43%) are female for online pre-registration while the figures for completed registration are 72,075 (or 60%) male and 48,525 (or 40%) female.
He therefore appealed to all eligible Nigerians to seize the opportunity and engage in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration excercise.
He stated,”Once again, the Commission appeals to all Nigerians to seize the opportunity to either initiate their registration online and schedule an appointment at their convenience to complete the process or visit any of the Commission’s State/LGA office nationwide to register.
“For emphasis, we wish to remind citizens that the ongoing registration does not include those who are already registered as voters.
“The current exercise is only open to Nigerians who are 18 years and above who have not registered before. It is an offence under the Electoral Act for any citizen to register more than once.”
