The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says 62,698 cases of double voter registration were discovered in Anambra.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC National Chairman, said this on Friday at an emergency meeting with political parties in Abuja.

Yakubu said the meeting became necessary in order to brief the parties on the commission’s preparations for the Anambra governorship election and to discuss recent developments in the state.

He said during the clean-up of registration data in Anambra after the first quarter of the CVR exercise, it was discovered that 62,698 people who are already registered voters, registered again.

“In Anambra State, a total of 138,802 citizens completed the registration, including applications for transfer and requests for replacement of lost, damaged or defaced PVCs as required by law. However, in the process of cleaning up the registration data, we discovered that many previously registered persons re-registered afresh,” he said.

“As a testimony to the effectiveness of our new system for checking double and multiple registrations, the commission found out that some 62,698 persons who are already registered voters in Anambra state went ahead to register again. These double or multiple registrations are invalid by law. We have archived these registrations and will not print new PVCs for them.

“Their old PVCs remain valid and they can use them to vote at the Polling Units where they registered and probably voted in previously elections. The same cleaning up exercise is going on nationwide. As soon as it is over, the commission will provide further details to Nigerians on the situation in other States of the Federation and action to be taken on the matter. Let me remind all Nigerians that the law prohibits double registration.

“Consequently, the number of valid registrants in Anambra state at the end of the first quarter of the CVR exercise on 5th September 2021 is 77,475. This figure has been added to the existing register of 2,447,996 eligible voters used for the 2019 General Election. Accordingly, the number of registered voters in Anambra State now stands at 2,525,471.”

The chairman said security around INEC facilities in the state has been ramped up in preparation for the upcoming election and appealed to the political parties not to worsen insecurity with their utterances and actions.

“This could compound the security situation and make the work of the Commission, political parties and security agencies even more difficult. It may also lead to voter apathy,” he said.

Speaking on recruitment of staff, INEC said it is almost done with the recruitment of ad-hoc staff for the election.

“In all, about 26,000 election duty staff are required, although there are still some minor shortfalls, we believe that we will complete the recruitment in time for their training scheduled to commence on 19th October 2021.

“The training of other categories of staff, such as Electoral Officers (EOs) and Assistant Electoral Officers (AEOs) has been completed, while the training of Supervisory Presiding Officers (SPOs) will commence soon.”

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