The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday said it is working towards publishing and displaying a preliminary voters’ register for the 2023 general elections for citizens to see and make observations.

INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu while speaking during a meeting with journalists and members of the civil society organisations in Abuja, the nation’s capital said the exercise will commence on Saturday, November 5 and will last till Friday, November 25, 2022.

Accordint to Yakubu, the commission will display a hard copy of the voters’ register in every registration area across the 774 local government areas of the country.

“In the next few days, the commission will print 9.3 million pages of the register. The hard copy will be displayed for each of the 8,809 registration areas for wards and 774 local government areas nationwide,” he said.

“The entire register will be published on our website for claims and objections as required by law. The display of the physical register will take place at the designated centers – wards and local governments – from Saturday, November 12 to Friday, November 25.”

The INEC boss noted that the electoral body will release further details for Nigerians to file their claims and objections by next week.

He urged citizens to use the opportunity to scrutinise the list and help the commission do proper cleaning so that the final voters’ register for the 2023 general elections can be compiled and published.

On the number of registered voters in Nigeria, the INEC boss puts the figure at 93.5 million, adding that 9.5 million new voters were added to the existing register of 84 million voters.

Yakubu explained that the figure is preliminary because “Section 19(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act 2022 requires the Commission to display the hard copies of the register of voters for each Registration Area (Ward) and Local Government Area (and simultaneously publish the entire register on the Commission’s website) for a period of two weeks for scrutiny, claims and objections by citizens not later than 90 days to a General Election.”

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