The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has called on Nigerians to help the commission detect underage voters as it plans to display the voters’ register starting from 6th to 12th November, 2018 for claims and objections.
The commission said this became pertinent in order to have a clean and credible register ahead of the 2019 general election.
The National Commissioner of INEC on Voter Education and Publicity, Mr. Festus Okoye, made the call Thursday in Abuja at a workshop on ‘The Role of the Media in Promoting Participatory Democracy in Nigeria,’ organised by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in partnership with the Danish International Development Agency.
According to him, “Starting from the 6th to the 7th of November 2018, the commission will display the voters register for claims and objections. The display will be done at the polling units all over the country and the claims and objections will be entertained to check their names on the register and confirm the correctness or otherwise of the information provided therein.”
Okoye added: “We also urge the Nigerian people to assist the commission in detecting underage registrants and those that have passed on. It is only by so doing that we can have a register that is clean and credible.”
He said that through workshops and seminars such as this, media practitioners would acquire knowledge and update their knowledge of current issues in the electoral process.
Okoye said that without stakeholder partnership, collaboration and synergy, the voters would be left in the wilderness of despair and the country’s electoral process would not mature and take root.
