2023: INEC suspends CVR exercise nationwide, as fresh registration hits 10.4m

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has suspended its Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise nationwide following the expiration of the July 31 deadline.

This is also as the commission disclosed that it recorded 10.4 million fresh registration in the nationwide CVR before it suspension on July 31.

The online exercise had earlier been suspended, as the commission continued with the physical capture of new registrants which was extended to July 31.

A notice on INEC’s website reads: “The CVR Exercise has been suspended. Access to log-in to check the status of your completed applications will soon be restored.”

The commission had declared that the exercises would officially end on July 31, 2022.

Before this notice, INEC extended the June 30 deadline but did not stipulate when the exercise would officially end.

As of last week, Monday, July 25, about 11 million Nigerians have been added to the new voter register since the exercise began in June last year.

Data from the commission also revealed that 10,487,972 new registration were recorded, with 3,391,940 registering online and 7,619,179 through physical registration.

According to the commission, the gender breakdown of the registrants that have completed their registration comprised 5,453,071 males and 5,558,048 females.

The released statistics also showed that 7,828,570 of the figure are youth while 80,101 are Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).

The update also revealed that INEC had received 28,453 255 applications, including applications for voter transfer, requests for replacement of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), and updates of voter information records, among others.

Meanwhile, INEC said in its CVR Update for Quarter 4, week 16, released on Monday, August 1 in Abuja, that during the period, 12.2 million registrants completed their registrations, of which 3.4 million registered online, while 8.8 million registered through physical registration.

INEC gave the gender breakdown of the registrants who completed their registrations to be, 6,074,078 male and 6,224,866 female.

The update also showed that 8,784,677 of the registrants that completed their registrations were youths, 2,430,709 middle aged, 956,017 elderly, 127,541 old persons, while 87,083 were Persons With Disabilities (PWDs).

INEC also said that during the period of CVR, the commission received 31,098,013 applications including those for voter transfer, requests for replacement of PVCs, update of voter information record, and others, of which 216,442 was from PWDs.

It gave the gender breakdown of those who applied to be 16,148,645 for male and 14,949,368 from women.

A further breakdown of the completed registration by states showed that Lagos has the highest number of registrants that completed their registration with 585,629 registrants, followed by Kano with 569,103 and Delta with 523,517.

Ekiti has the lowest number of people who completed registration with 124,844, followed by Yobe 152,414, FCT 211,341 and Imo with 213, 270.

The last CVR commenced in April 2017 and ended in August 2018, in the lead-up to the 2019 general elections.

It was scheduled to resume in the first quarter of 2020 but was suspended following the break out of COVID-19 pandemic.

However, INEC resumed the exercise on June 28, 2021 and suspended it on July 31.