19th January, 2022
Arrival of the Hon. Chairman #INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu at the First Consultative Meeting with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) at the Commission’s Conference Room Abuja.
Arrival of the Hon. Chairman #INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu at the First Consultative Meeting with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) at the Commission’s Conference Room Abuja.
1. I warmly welcome you all to our first regular quarterly meeting for this year. It is therefore appropriate to start by wishing you all a happy New Year.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
2. The year 2022 is going to be a very busy year for the Commission and civil society organisations. The 2023 General Election is just 395 days away. Critical preparations must be concluded this year.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
3. The Commission has been publishing weekly progress reports of the exercise, including analysis of the distribution of online and completed registration by age group, occupation, gender and disability.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
4. Since the exercise commenced in June last year, the Commission has so far published 36 weekly reports which show a consistent pattern of young Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 34 constituting the largest majority of registrants.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
5. In terms of occupation, students constitute the largest majority of registrants which is consistent with the dominance of young Nigerians as voters.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
6. We will continue to work with all stakeholders, especially the civil society organisations, to sensitise the youths and other categories of voters to ensure that beyond registration, they come and out and vote on Election Day.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
7. We should not simply lament, criticize and condemn. We must get involved for the good of our democracy and the nation.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
8. We are aware that Nigerians want to know when their PVCs will be available for collection. We appreciate the role of civil society organisations in encouraging and mobilizing eligible Nigerians who have not registered to do so.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
9. At the same time, we want you to continue to sensitise them that those who had registered at any time previously need not register again.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
10. For those who have completed the registration, the Commission is right now undertaking the most comprehensive cleaning up of the data to ensure that only eligible citizens are added to the voters’ register for the 2023 General Election.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
11. Meanwhile, the Commission has also decided that the suspended Ekiti East I State Constituency bye-election will be combined with the State Governorship election holding on 18th June 2022.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
12. The date for the Shinkafi State Constituency bye-election in Zamfara State will be announced after a thorough review of the security situation in the area,…
13. …while the Commission awaits the declaration of vacancy by the Kaduna State House of Assembly in respect of the Giwa West State Constituency.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
13. Turning to the major end-of-tenure and off-cycle elections, party primaries for the Ekiti State Governorship election are scheduled for 4th–29th Jan. 2022. For the Osun State Governorship election, primaries will hold from 16th Feb. to 12th Mar. 2022.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
14. In the case of Ekiti State, all the 18 political parties have served the mandatory notices for the primaries.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
15. In our meeting with political parties yesterday, we reminded them that all primaries for electing candidates must take place in the constituency where election will hold as required by law.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
16. We also made it clear to them that in the cases of Ekiti and Osun State Governorship elections, any primaries conducted outside the two States will not be monitored by the Commission and their outcomes will not be accepted.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
17. It is now 24 days to the Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory. Some of the major activities have already been carried out, including the conduct of primaries and nomination of candidates by political parties.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
18. Last week, the Commission presented the register of voters to political parties while the PVCs for new registrants, requests for transfers & replacement of cards have been printed and delivered several weeks ago to our FCT office for collection by voters
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
19. In the next few weeks, the Commission will intensify stakeholder engagements, the monitoring of campaigns by political parties and preparations for Election Day activities.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
20. On this note, I want to draw your attention to the distribution of voters to Polling Units in the FCT, particularly the fact that 593 out of 2,822 (or 21%) of the total, do not have voters.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
21. This is because voters failed to take advantage of the expansion of access to transfer to these new Polling Units. The detailed distribution of voters to Polling Units in the FCT is among the documents in your folders for this meeting.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
22. The Commission looks forward to the support of civil society organisations to encourage voters who wish to transfer from their present Polling Units to new ones created as part of the Commission’s expansion of access polling units across the country.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
23. After all, the support of civil society organisations was crucial to the success of the recent expansion of voter access to polling units for the first time in 25 years since the initial delimitation in 1996.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
24. For emphasis, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will be deployed in the FCT elections which is the second major election after the Anambra Governorship election held in November last year.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
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