The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has said that this year’s elections, which kicks off next month with the presidential and National Assembly polls, belong to the youth. He based this assessment on statistics gleaned from voter registration and collection of Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs). Speaking at Chatham House in London, the United Kingdom, yesterday, Yakubu also said that Nigeria has 16.7 million more voters than the rest of West Africa combined. Giving a breakdown of voter registration and collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), he said records on the ground showed that the election would be dominated by the Nigerian youth.
Yakubu, who said he was encouraged by the turn-out of registered voters to collect their PVCs, said over 600,000 eligible voters collected their PVCs in Lagos alone within the last month. The INEC boss stated that there are currently 93.4 million registered voters in Nigeria out of which 37 million, that is 39 per cent, are young people between the ages of 18 and 34. “And then they’re closely followed by 33.4 million or 35.3 per cent of middle-aged voters between the ages of 35 and 49. Put together, these two categories constitute 75.39 per cent of registered voters in Nigeria. So, actually, the 2023 election is the election of the young people because they have the numbers.
Even the majority of the PVCs collected are collected by young people. So, out of the 93.4 million, 70.4 million registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 49.” Speaking on the number of voters registered in the country, Yakubu said: “Based on figures compiled from electoral commissions and interior ministries in West Africa, Nigeria’s current voter population is 16.7 million higher than the 76.7 million registered in all the other countries put together – and there are 14 other elections in the subregion,” he said.
The INEC Chairman said the 2023 general election will be held as planned in spite of the various attacks on the Commission’s facilities across the nation. He decried the increasing spate of attacks on INEC’s facilities in the form of arson but reassured the audience that the Commission would go ahead with the elections as scheduled. Yakubu noted that 50 facilities of the Commission had been attacked in the last four years. He said the implications of the attacks were that the Commission would need to continue to rebuild the burnt facilities and replace materials.
He, however, assured that INEC, in collaboration with security agencies, had increased security presence in some of the attack-prone locations. He noted that the last attack on the Commission’s facilities happened last week Sunday but the Commission was able to respond quickly with the help of the military, thereby minimising the extent of damage done to that attacked facility. Yakubu said the commission is satisfied with the preparations done so far ahead of the elections. “We have promised Nigerians and friends of Nigerians that the 2023 general election will be free, free and credible and we have left no stone unturned in preparing for it.
“But like with all elections, especially those requiring the extensive national deployment as we do in Nigeria, it will naturally come with challenges. We have worked closely with stakeholders and development partners to confront these challenges and we are satisfied with our preparations so far,” he said. Yakubu also disclosed that the Commission would conduct mock accreditation nationwide ahead of the general elections. He said the mock accreditation would be carried out across selected polling units to ascertain the integrity of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) before the main elections begin next month.
He revealed that every BVAS machine deployed across the 774 local government had been tested, adding that the functionality of the machines was impressive. He also stated that backup machines have been readily provided in case of system glitches. He added that with all preparations on the ground, the commission is really “comfortable and happy.” Yakubu said, “We have the machines for the 2023 elections but we didn’t want to take chances.
Each and every machine has been tested and confirmed functional. For the last two weeks, our officials were in the 36 states of the federation testing these machines, and the functionality is simply encouraging. “The second thing we’re going to do, and pretty soon, is to conduct mock accreditation exercises nationwide ahead of the elections. We won’t wait until the main elections come; we will test the integrity of these machines with real-life voters in selected polling units across the country. “We did so in Ekiti and Osun, it was fantastic and we’re going to do so nationwide. Increasingly our people are becoming more excited about the deployment of this technology and we’re really happy. Also in terms of the number of these BVAS machines, we always make provisions in case of malfunction or glitches. There is always a backup. We have IReV technical support that will fix the machines in the unlikely event of any glitches.”
