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| INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu |
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says underage persons attempting to vote during the February-March elections will be arrested alongside their parents for aiding and abetting electoral fraud.
National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee Mr Festus Okoye, made the declaration on a television programme yesterday.
He said: “We have made it very clear that any visibly underage person should not approach any of our polling units on Election Day. “If the person does appear, he or she would be arrested, alongside their parents for aiding and abetting such a venture”.
The body slammed those involved in the buying of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and “harvesting Voter Identi fication Numbers”. Okoye said: “Those who are harvesting Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) of registered voters are doing that in futility.
“Why are they harvesting and buying off VINs when those VINs were published in our local government areas and in our registration areas when we displayed the voter registers for claims and objections?
Those VINs are there. “We have made it very clear that this commission will deploy the BVAS for voters’ identification and authentication and the data of every registered voter in Nigeria per polling unit is domiciled in the BVAS and not in the PVCs.
“The only thing the Presiding Officer will do on Election Day is to look at the last six digits of your PVC and use it to bring out your VIN for the purpose of calling up your data from the BVAS.
“Those buying PVCs and harvesting VINs can only engage in voter oppression. “They can only prevent the voter from going to the polling unit on Election Day but in terms of carrying the PVC of someone else to give another person for voting, I can assure you that it is next to impossible.”
INEC chief said they will engage the services of 1.4 million ad hoc workers for the election. According to him, they will be made up of National Youth Service Corps members and tertiary institution students in their final year.
Okoye said: “You will know that it is next to impossible for INEC to have over 1.4 million staff in its payroll.
“The strength staff of the commission is around 16,000 and so when we devolve the collection to the various registration areas, we are going to engage the services of corps members to assist the commission in terms of giving out these PVCs.” INEC said it would publish the official register of voters for the general election on January 16.
Okoyesaid:“Ourvoterregister is robust and we believe that it is very credible. As of today, we have 93.5 registered voters in the register. “On the 16th of January 2023, the commission will publish the official register of voters that will be used for the 2023 general election. “Yes, I completely agree that there have been issues aroundunderageregistration.
“In some of the areas where we recorded underage registration, we have summoned all the officers that engaged in that particular exercise to appear before the commission and appear beforeaspecialpanelof thecommission and it is still ongoing. “We have made it very clear that any visibly underage person should not approach any of our polling units on Election Day. “If the person does appear theywouldbearrested, alongside their parents for aiding and abetting such a venture.
“The Chairman (Prof. Mahmood Yakubu) has told Nigerians that the cleaning of the voter register is an ongoing venture and we are going to make sure that all malicious registrations that got into our register will be removed prior toElectionDay. “Some of the information on social media relating to underage registration was carried out between 2011 and before we went into the 2019 general election.
“Thiscommissionhadthe courage to publish the voter register and asked Nigerians to scrutinise the register to make sure that every malicious registration is removed. “WeassureNigeriansthat the voters register that will be used in the 2023 election is the onethattheywillbeproudof.