The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it registered no fewer than 10 million Nigerians in the ongoing nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).

Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this at the commission’s quarterly consultative meeting with security agencies under the auspices of Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) on Friday in Abuja.

Yakubu said that the people were registered between April 2017 when the CVR commenced and end of June 2018.

He said that total number of registered voters in the country would increase to 80 million when the figure from the CVR was added to existing 70 million voters.

“As at June 22, 2018 fresh registration is 9,922,619, PVC Collection, 576,346; request for transfer, 489,354 and request for replacement of PVCs, 766,435.

“What this means is that since the commencement of CVR on April 27, 2017, about 10 million Nigerians have been registered and this will be added to existing register of 70 million voters.

“This means that as we approach 2019 general elections, Nigeria will have voter register of at least 80 million.”

Yakubu said that INEC was committed to transparency in the conduct of elections and the declaration of results.

He said that one of the things the commission had consistently been doing was to issue copies of elections’ result sheets to agents of political parties at that level.

He said that following stakeholders’ demand for transparency in the electoral process, INEC responded by displaying result for each polling unit immediately after counting of ballot for public information.

“Having found this as a useful way of enhancing citizens’ mandate protection, we took it a step further by introducing the EC60E.

“The form is a large poster reflecting the result in each polling unit as recorded on the EC8A shared with agents of political parties.

“The poster is pasted at each polling unit immediately after the counting of ballot papers.

“Consequently, citizens now know the outcome of voting in each polling unit and can track the processes of collation leading to the final declaration of results.

“These posters were effectively deployed in all elections since the Anambra State Governorship election in November 2017. We shall deploy them in all forthcoming elections,” the chairman said.

He urged the security agencies to help and ensure that the Form was pasted at polling units after the declaration of election result in the units.

He appealed to the agencies to remind the polling officers to paste the result at each polling unit “where there is an inadvertent omission to paste it’’.

Yakubu also urged agencies to continue to provide peaceful environment for conduct of elections across the country.

“As we approach the 2019 general elections, we also need your support, especially in securing the environment for us to conduct elections.

“I will like to thank the security agency for the things that you have done to secure the environment.

“I will like to appeal to the security agencies to continue to exploit the same neutrality to see that our elections are getting better.

“We want Ekiti to surpass Anambra and I believe we can do it and I am confident in the security agencies that we can do it.”

In his response, National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-Gen. Mohammed Monguno (retd), pledged that necessary security support would be given to ensure success of Ekiti governorship election and 2019 general elections.

Monguno, who was represented by Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Mrs Peace Abdallah, expressed confidence that INEC would continue to conduct credible elections.

“It is not in doubt that INEC has always shown not just by words but action, that as we look forward to Ekiti and future elections, especially 2019 that Nigeria elections will continue to be commendable.” (NAN)

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