2023: North-West and South-South take the lead as INEC registers 12 million more Nigerians

Following the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), which commenced on June 28, 2020, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday, announced that the number of fresh registrants that completed their registration stood at 12,298,944.

The Commission had ended the exercise on Sunday, after a one-month extension from the initial June 30 deadline.

A notice on the website reads: “The CVR exercise has been suspended. Access to log-in to check the status of your completed applications will soon be restored.”
According to INEC, the exercise has been suspended till after the 2023 general elections.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on June 28, 2021, flagged off the resumption of the online CVR, starting with the opening of the online registration portal, which was followed by the applicants’ physical registration on July 26, 2021, after the 2019 general elections.

“The number of registrants who have completed online and physical registration was 12,298,944, made up of 6,074,078 males and 6,224,866 females of which 87,083 were people living with disabilities (PWDs) and 8,784,677 youths.”

A breakdown of the figure by The Guardian revealed that of the fresh registrants, 6,359,711 came from the North, while 5,939,233 reside in the South, indicating a disparity of 420,478. Going by geo-political zones, the Northwest recorded the highest with 2,514,273 new registrants, while the South-South trails closely with 2,458,095 applications. The North-Central followed with 2,314,368 completed registration, while Southwest has 2,039,982.

Also, about 1,531,070 applications came from the Northeast while the Southeast has the least completed registration with 1,441,156. A state-by-state breakdown revealed that Lagos and Kano have the highest number of new registrants with 585,620 and 569,103 respectively with Yobe and Ekiti recording the lowest with 152,414 and 124,844 applications. However, following the latest registrations, number of registered voters in Nigeria may have risen from 84 million to 96.2 million.