By Emmanuel Oloniruha

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has detected many double, multiple and ineligible registration in the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) held between Jan. 1 and July 31.

Mr Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, made the declaration in a statement issued on Monday in Abuja.

He stated that the irregularities were discovered during the cleaning up of the voters register using the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).

“The ABIS for the period Jan. 15 to July 31, 2022 is almost completed. Several double, multiple and ineligible registrants have also been detected and invalidated.

“These include entries that failed to meet the Commission’s business rules. The Commission takes this responsibility seriously because a credible register is at the heart of electoral integrity.

“As soon as the process is concluded, the Commission will provide the public with full information as usual.

“Thereafter, valid registrants will be added to the existing national register of voters before publishing same nationwide for scrutiny, claims and objections as required by the Electoral Act 2022.

“Similarly, Permanent Voters’ Cards for all valid registrants will be available for collection by the end of October and early November as promised,’’ he stated.

INEC had earlier declared that out of the 2,523,458 registration done between June 28, 2021 and Jan. 14, 2022, records of 1,126,359 registrants were found to be invalid and they were consequently delisted.

(NAN)