Registered voters hit seven million in Lagos – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission in Lagos State says the state currently has about seven million registered voters.

The state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Olusegun Agbaje, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday.

According to him, if the number of new registrants so far in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration is added to those in the register of voters before in the state, the number will be about seven million.

“In Lagos State as of Monday (July 18), those who registered online are 640, 560 but many of them have not completed registration. Those who have completed the registration are 451, 156.

“The total number of registered voters in Lagos State before the commencement of the ongoing CVR is 6,570,291, and if we add the new registrants, we have about seven million registered voters,” Agbaje said.

He, however, said the ongoing CVR had not ended and the commission was still capturing more people before deadline on July 31.

The INEC boss said there would not be any extension of the CVR because the commission had lots of work to do on the voters register before printing of the Permanent Voter Cards.

He assured all stakeholders that though the commission could not capture everybody, those who presented themselves for registration would not be denied.

“Every day, there is no one that will come here that will go out without being attended to unless we cannot finish before 7pm because, by that time, all over the country, the system will shut down to avoid misuse of the machine at night.

“Everybody cannot be captured but those who come to us will be registered,” he said.

He said the commission added six extra days to the registration which were Saturdays and Sundays of the last three weeks of the exercise from 9am to 5pm before the deadline.

 “Whoever comes out on these weekends, especially those who complained that their work do not allow them, will be registered,” he added.

He said the commission had to stop the CVR on July 31,  so as to clean up the voter register which he described as vital in the credibility of elections.

“We have to take the data to our workshop, analyse what we have, then to another workshop for printing of cards, transporting them to all the states before we ask people to come and collect.

“So, the processes are quite long and the time is not there, we have to stop the CVR,” he added.

Urging people to avoid double registration, Agbaje said those engaged in double or multiple registration would not get PVCs.

According to him, those who engage in multiple registration affect chances of others, saying many who need to seek replacement of lost or defaced PVCs or transfer of their registration to a nearest polling units are registering newly.