From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has hinted that it may prosecute over 62,698 Anambra State voters that are involved in double or multiple registrations that were recently discovered during the process of cleaning up the registration data.
Chairman of the Commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, gave the hint in his remarks at an emergency meeting of political parties in Abuja on Friday. He also announced that the commission is targeting deployment of no fewer than 26,000 election duty staff, lamenting that there are still shortfalls on the required number ahead of the commencement of their training scheduled for next week.
Declaring that the era of Incidence forms in elections in Nigeria is over, he reiterated the determination of the commission to deploy the new technology, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), during the November 6, Anambra governorship election.
His words: “In Anambra State, a total of 138,802 citizens completed the registration, including applications for transfer and requests for replacement of lost, damaged or defaced PVCs as required by law. However, in the process of cleaning up the registration data, we discovered that many previously registered persons re-registered afresh.
“As a testimony to the effectiveness of our new system for checking double and multiple registrations, the commission found out that some 62,698 persons who are already registered voters in Anambra State went ahead to register again. These double or multiple registrations are invalid by law.
“We have archived these registrations and will not print new PVCs for them. Their old PVCs remain valid and they can use them to vote at the Polling Units where they registered and probably voted in previous elections.