INEC detects 114,882 multiple registrations in Ekiti, Osun

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it has detected and removed 114,882 multiple registrants from the Ekiti and Osun States voters registers, ahead of the governorship elections in the states.

The INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, disclosed this in a chat with journalists in Abuja on Monday.

The governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states would hold on June 21 and August 9, respectively.

Jega said after the consolidation of the data in the voter registration in Ekiti State, there were 688,950 voters, but after running the Advance Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), 77,609 multiple registrations representing 12 per cent of the total number of voters, were detected and removed.

He said 76,091 people registered recently after the Commission did the Continued Voters Registration (CVR) in the state.
In Osun, the INEC Chairman said after consolidating the data, it got 1,355,393 voters, but after running the AFIS a total of 37,273 multiple registrants representing 2.75% were discovered and removed.

He said after conducting the CVR in Osun State, the Commission had 149,755 new voters on the register.

The INEC Chairman said the Commission would still conduct AFIS in both states because politicians have devised means to engage in multiple registrations noting that the plan to conduct fresh exercise was aimed at thwarting the efforts of the politicians.

“We are now consolidating these data with what we already have and we are going to run AFIS. In fact, in both Ekiti and Osun, we have seen how our politicians were using vehicles and moving people from one polling unit to another. So we are going to again catch multiple registrations,” Jega said.

“You can see that by their attitude we are wasting resources and time because it costs money to do this thing. We have already decided that we are going to run AFIS in Ekiti and Osun States. We will run AFIS in Ekiti States with the neighbouring states particularly with the local government areas because these ones, it is easier to move there to do multiple registrations,” he added.

On the 2015 general elections, Jega said the consolidation and de-duplication of the biometric register of voters have been completed.

He said the voters register now has integrity that surpasses the register with which 2011 elections were conducted.

 Jega said the register would compare favourably with anyone on the African continent.