The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the removal of 7,746 deceased individuals from the national voter register across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as of December 2022. This update was shared by INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Victoria Etta-Messi, on Thursday.
Etta-Messi confirmed that the commission had conducted a thorough clean-up of the voter register, which is typically done in preparation for every general election. However, she also pointed out that challenges persist in maintaining an accurate voter list due to gaps in official death records.
Despite efforts to improve the voter registration process, which saw the addition of 12,298,944 new registrants, the commission noted persistent issues in the removal of deceased voters from the register. The main challenge cited was the lack of consistent and reliable death records, which hampers efforts to identify and remove deceased individuals.
INEC’s 2023 post-general election review, conducted in December 2024, also flagged concerns about double and multiple registrations, which were addressed using the Automated Biometric Identification System. The system successfully identified and removed 2,780,756 cases of invalid registrations, which made up 22.6% of all new voter registrations.
One major concern highlighted in the review was the continuing decline in voter turnout. The 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections saw a voter turnout of 27.5%, a significant drop from 35.6% in the 2019 elections. Some stakeholders attributed this decline to an inflated voter register, which further fueled calls for more rigorous efforts in voter list clean-up.
To tackle these challenges, stakeholders at the review suggested that INEC should strengthen its collaboration with key agencies such as the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). Such partnerships could assist in better identifying deceased voters and ensuring their removal from the register.
Other suggestions included suspending individuals who have not voted in the past three elections and requiring them to revalidate their registration in order to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the voter list.
