No underage voting in Kano, Probe report reveals

There were no cases of underage voting as widely reported during the Kano state local government election, the report of the committee set up to investigate the allegation has said.

The report, however, acknowledged the existence of a small number of underage voters in the register who were registered during the 2011 and 2015 registration exercises.

This is even as it revealed that the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC) did not use the national voters register made available to it by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the February 2018 local government election.

But the report further stated that accreditation was observed in the polling unit where the governor voted and a few others within the same voting centre “for photo-op purposes but that remained the only place such was done as the elections was a free for all affair with voters not going through any process of accreditation but being allowed to vote.”

The report affirmed that the “KANSIEC threw process overboard and allowed for any one that wanted to vote to participate without recourse to INEC’s register.”

“This perhaps was done to ensure massive return of votes aimed at giving impression of mass support for the ruling party in the state,” the report said.

The committee called for actions to be taking to ensure that State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) enjoy independence as well as the introduction of measures targeted at cleaning up the voters register in the remaining thirty-five states of the federation and the FCT were cases of ineligible voters have been confirmed.

Sequel to the outcry of alleged underage voting that greeted the Kano local government election, the INEC had set up a committee to investigate the allegation, particularly the link, if any, between underage voting in the election and the national register of voters.

The committee however recommended that political parties as well as Nigerians should get involved in the process of cleaning up the voters register since all registrants belong to a community and are known by the party.