INEC denies Atiku's claims, defends South-West voter registration figures

Two political parties, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Labour Party, have questioned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s claim that the South-West had the highest percentage of pre-registration numbers in its ongoing Continuous Voter Registration exercise.

However, the electoral umpire dismissed the charges as unjustified, citing a lack of historical awareness of previous voter registration trends.

The ADC, in a statement published on Thursday by its Acting National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, questioned the registration process in the South West, emphasising that data from Osun State, in particular, contravene both historical trends and demographic realities.

According to INEC estimates, Osun State registered approximately 400,000 new voters, a claim that was challenged by the ADC, who demanded a forensic assessment of the data.

“The African Democratic Congress has viewed the first set of data released by the Independent National Electoral Commission on new Continuous Voter registrations with great concern.

“According to INEC’s figures, Osun State alone recorded 393,269 pre-registrations in just one week. To put this in context, Osun added only 275,815 new voters between 2019 and 2023, a period of four years. In other words, Osun has now supposedly registered more people in seven days than it managed to do in an entire electoral cycle of four years.

“Even at its highest point of political mobilisation in 2022, Osun has never produced more than 823,124 votes cast in the Governorship Election. Now, by some miracle, nearly 20 per cent of all eligible adults in the state have rushed to register. This is not just unusual; it is statistically implausible.

“The anomalies become even more glaring when viewed in the context of the overall registration report. Across the six geopolitical zones, the South West alone accounts for 848,359 pre-registrations, an astonishing 67 per cent of the national total. By contrast, the entire Southeastrecorded just 1,998 pre-registrations.

“To further illustrate, three states, Osun, Lagos, and Ogun, make up 54.2 per cent of all pre-registrations in Nigeria, while five states combined, Ebonyi, Imo, Enugu, Abia, and Adamawa, barely recorded 4,153, or 0.2 per cent, while the entire Northeastrecorded just 6.1 per cent,” the ADC statement read in part.

The Interim National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Tony Akeni, urged Nigerians to be vigilant, saying the claim by INEC should not be taken lightly.

However, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) dismissed ADC’s reaction to the South-West figures, noting that the David Mark-led party was simply being alarmist.

Speaking to reporters, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Ejimofor Opara, said the credibility of INEC is not in doubt.

He said, “Figures don’t lie. To what extent has the ADC gone to mobilise their members to register across the states of the federation? If the data is showing that there are more newly registered voters in the South-West than any other geopolitical zone, the most we can say is that we don’t have the data with us.

“If we see the data, we can interrogate it. If the body responsible for the registration exercise is saying, based on the data available to them, the South-West has more voters in the CVR going on, then that is what it is. There is a need for circumspection.

“INEC credibility is not in doubt. We believe they will do the right thing by carrying everyone along and capturing them in the process. ADC is just being alarmist. We are mobilising our members to go and register. At the end of the day, the data will speak for itself.”

The Osun State branch of the Peoples Democratic Party responded to the PVC statistic, saying it could indicate the people’s preparation for the state’s upcoming governorship election.

The All Progressives Congress, on the other hand, stated that only the Independent National Electoral Commission could explain how the state’s results were calculated.

The two sides responded separately to the ADC’s concerns over Osun’s results in the CVR exercise.

Mr Kola Olabisi, the Osun APC spokesperson, stated that because no other body can be held responsible for voter registration, the party should not have been questioned about the data.

“I want to believe that another person cannot be doing INEC’s work. If there is a proper query, let it be brought up so that people will know that some people are not acting as meddlesome interlopers,” Olabisi said.

Also in reaction to ADC, Osun PDP spokesperson, Oladele Bamiji, stated that the party would investigate the figures.

He said, “We are all alarmed, like any other political party and persons, at how INEC came up with the figure, but what we can only say is that the people of Osun are really up for the election. But that is not to say that the figure is not alarming. We are also putting heads together to see what happened.

“We have our ways of monitoring our people who have not registered before but are registering now. Those who are of voting age and our supporters who are now registering.”

However, INEC, in a statement issued Thursday by the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, stated, “The attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission has been drawn to a press statement attributed to the spokesperson of a political party on the data published by the Commission on the online pre-registration of voters.

“In particular, the statement claimed that the number of pre-registrants in Osun State defies ‘historical patterns and demographic realities.’” Nothing can be further from the truth,” the statement read.

INEC maintained that its online pre-registration portal will open on August 18, 2025, with in-person registration beginning on August 25.

In the first week, 1,379,342 Nigerians pre-registered online. Osun State had the most registrations with 393,269, followed by Lagos State with 222,205 and the Federal Capital Territory with 107,682.

According to Oyekanmi, the present figures are congruent with the results of INEC’s 2021 online registration effort. He stated that more than 59,000 accounts were established in the first 24 hours of the portal’s opening on June 28, 2021.

‘’By the second week, Osun had 154,893 pre-registrants. That figure grew to 232,880 by the third week and 402,619 by the eleventh week. As of April 18, 2022, Osun led all states with 708,782 completed pre-registrations.

“With regard to Osun State, the pattern is similar to what occurred in June 2021 when the Commission launched the online pre-registration for the first time. Within the first 24 hours of launching the portal on 28th June 2021, 59,331 accounts were created.

“By the second week, on 12th July 2021, a total of 456,909 accounts were active. Interestingly, Osun State led with 154,893 pre-registrations at the time. In the third week, 752,011 persons had pre-registered, and Osun State was at the front with 232,880.

“By the eighth week on 23rd August 2021, 2,215,832 persons had pre-registered, with Osun State still leading with 365,412. In the 11th week of the exercise on 13th September 2021, 2,953,094 individuals had pre-registered, with Osun State still in the lead with 402,619. By 18th April 2022, a total of 8,271,647 Nigerians had pre-registered, and Osun was ahead of all states with 708,782 registrations.

“If the party were proactive enough, a simple search of past records already in the public domain would have revealed these facts. The Commission was upfront during the last CVR exercise by releasing the data on a weekly basis until it was concluded in 2022. Besides, all persons who pre-registered online were required to physically visit a designated centre to complete their registration process, during which their biometrics were captured,” Oyekanmi explained.

He emphasized that INEC has always maintained transparency by publishing weekly updates throughout the 2021/2022 Continuous Voter Registration exercise.