The commission revealed this in a statement by Mr Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, after an extraordinary meeting of the commission in Abuja on Friday, July 15, 2022.
Okoye said the decision was to allow the commission perform the legal obligations before it in the build up to the 2023 general elections, NAN reports.
He revealed that the commission has introduced new measures to ensure that more Nigerians were registered before the new deadline.
In line with that, the duration for registration has now been extended to eight hours daily from 9am to 5pm, including weekends.
Okoye said INEC arrived at the decision at its extraordinary meeting where it discussed among other things, the suspension of the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).
Recall that the electoral umpire had earlier said registrations would be suspended on June, 30, 2022, but later extended the exercise indefinitely following an interim injunction of the Court served on it by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP).
SERAP had filed a suit seeking to compel the commission to extend the exercise beyond June, 30 2022 but the judgment delivered by the Federal High Court on Wednesday July 13 struck out the suit.
The Court affirmed that INEC remained at liberty to appoint a date of its choice to suspend the CVR, provided it was not later than 90 days before the date fixed for the general elections as provided in Sec. 9(6) of the Electoral Act 2022.
“With the judgment of the Federal High Court, all legal encumbrances have now been removed. Accordingly, the commission has taken the following decisions:
“The CVR is hereby extended for another two weeks until Sunday July 31 , thereby bringing the total duration of the extension to 31 days (July 1 to July 31, 2022).
“The exercise has also been extended to eight hours daily from 9am – 5pm instead of the current duration of six hours (9am – 3pm) daily; and
“The exercise is also extended to include weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) as against only weekdays,” he said.
Okoye noted that INEC was aware that the timeframe might be tight for many prospective registrants, but the commission has other responsibilities required of it under the electoral legal framework in relation to voter registration and compilation of the register that would require time to accomplish.
He said that for instance, INEC was required to: “Clean-up the register to remove multiple registrants using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS);
“Consolidate the national register of voters (existing voters and new registrants) and display same on Polling Unit basis for each of the 8,809 Registration Areas (Wards) across the 774 Local Government Areas nationwide for public scrutiny which lasts for a period of one week.”
He added that based on the new projection of 95 million voters, on the basis of 10 voters per page, the commission has to print 9,500,000 pages for the display
Okoye said that on the basis of a new projection of 95 million voters, on the basis of 10 voters per page, the commission had to print 9,500,000 pages for the display.
Add Comment