The Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday released the final list of voters that will cast their ballots in the elections, with the North-West and South-West having the lion’s share of the 93.4 million eligible voters.
Presenting the voter register at a meeting with leaders of political parties at the INEC headquarters, Abuja, the commission’s Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, said the number of registered youths was 37,060,399.
In November 2022, the commission published the preliminary register of voters across the 774 local government areas on its website to enable eligible voters to confirm their details, as well as for Nigerians to report ineligible persons captured in the register.
Yakubu said the commission received more than 53,000 objections to the register, after which the ineligible voters were removed.
He stated, “After the cleaning-up of the data from the last continuous voter registration exercise, 9,518,188 new voters were added to the previous register, resulting in the preliminary register of 93,522,272, which was presented to Nigerians for claims and objections as required by law.
“At the end of the period for claims and objections by citizens, the commission received 53,264 objections from Nigerians to the prevalence of ineligible persons on the register by age, citizenship, or death. These names have been verified and removed from the register.”
According to the figures released by the commission, the North-West geopolitical zone has the highest number of registered voters with 22,255,562.
As of the 2019 elections, the North-West had 20.15m voters. However, the latest report released by INEC showed that over 2m new voters registered during the recently concluded continuous voter registration.
The South-West, which in 2019 had 16,292,212 registered voters, now has 17,958,966, having added 1,666,754 new registered voters.
The North-Central, which had 13,366,070 registered voters in 2019, now has 15,363,731.
The electoral body figures also show that the South-South has 14,440,714 registered voters. The region boasted 12,841,279 registered voters in 2019.
On the other hand, the North-East currently has 12,542,429 up from 11,289, 293 voters it had in 2019 while the South-East has 10,907,606 up from 10,057,130 registered voters it had in 2019.
By gender, men surprisingly dominate the voter register at 49,054,162 (52.5 per cent) while the figure of female voters stands at 44,414,846 (47.5 per cent).
Lagos, Kano lead
Further breakdown by states showed that Lagos has the highest number of registered voters with 7,060,195, followed by Kano with 5,921,370 and Kaduna, 4,335,208.
Others include
Abia, 2,120,808;
Adamawa, 2,196,566;
Akwa-Ibom, 2,357,418;
Anambra, 2,656,437;
Bauchi, 2,749,268;
Bayelsa, 1,056,862;
Benue, 2,777,727;
Borno, 2,513,281;
Cross River 1,766,466;
Delta, 3,221,697;
Ebonyi, 1,597,646;
Edo, 2,501,081;
Ekiti, 987,647;
Enugu, 2,112,793;
FCT, 1,570,307;
Gombe, 1,575,794 and
Imo, 2,419,922.
Other states are
Jigawa, 2,351,298;
Katsina, 3,516,719;
Kebbi, 2,032,041;
Kogi, 1,932,654;
Kwara 1,695,927;
Nasarawa, 1,899,244;
Niger, 2,698,344;
Ogun, 2,688,305;
Ondo, 1,991,344;
Osun, 1,954,800;
Oyo, 3,276,675;
Plateau, 2,789,528;
Rivers, 3,537,190;
Sokoto, 2,172,056;
Taraba, 2,022,374;
Yobe,1,485,146; and
Zamfara, 1,926,870.
For the age group, registered youths (18-34) were 37,060,399; Middle aged (35-49) 33,413,591; Elderly (50-69), 17,700,270; old (70+) 5,294,748.
The INEC chairman assured Nigerians that the commission was not contemplating postponing the general elections.
“After the cleaning-up of the data from the last continuous voter registration exercise (June 2021 – July 2022), 9,518,188 new voters were added to the previous register resulting in the preliminary register of 93,522,272, which was presented to Nigerians for claims and objections as required by law.
“Consequently, the register of voters for the 2023 general election stands at 93,469,008.’’
