2023 Elections: Northwest, Southwest lead as INEC registers over 96m Nigerians

The Breakdown by Regions: According to the data released by INEC, the Northwest region comprising Sokoto, Kano, Kebbi, Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, and Jigawa topped the table with 22,672,373 prospective voters.

The Southwest, which comprises Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Osun, and Ekiti came second on the table. INEC registered 18,332,191 voters in the region.

Northcentral is third on the table with 15,680,438, followed by Southsouth with 15,299,374; Northeast, 12,820,363 and Southeast, 11,498,277.

INEC had in 2019 registered 84,004,084 voters for the last general elections. The electoral electoral body, in the just concluded Continuous Voter Registration exercise, registered 12,298,932 more prospective voters for the forthcoming election.

Having stopped the continuous voter registration exercise (CVR) on Sunday, a notice on the website of the electoral umpire on Monday stated that “The CVR exercise has been suspended. Access to log-in to check the status of your completed applications will soon be restored.”

A state-by-state breakdown of the 12,013,068 new prospective voters shows that Kano, one of the seven Northwest states, topped the table with 569,103 prospective voters, while Lagos State came second with 585,629.

Incomplete Registration: However, over seven million Nigerians who carried out their voter pre-registration online did not complete the process at physical centers.

The data released by the commission showed that out of the 10,487,972 Nigerians, who carried out their pre-registration online, only 3,444,378 Nigerians representing 32.8 percent, completed the process at a physical centre.

This means 7,043,594 persons of those who began their registration process online, will not receive their voter’s cards and won’t be able to participate in the 2023 elections.