INEC Removes 1.6m Invalid Voter Records

INEC Removes 1.6m Invalid Voter Records

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has removed 1,608,660 invalid voter registration records from the preliminary national register following a comprehensive review of entries generated during the 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.

The commission also disclosed that it had removed a total of 1,749 records belonging to verified deceased persons as part of efforts to sanitise the voters’ register ahead of the 2027 general elections.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN), disclosed this on Monday while briefing journalists on the outcome of the nationwide review.

He said the commission received 11,088,238 registration records from the three phases of the 2025/2026 CVR exercise.

Amupitan explained that the national voters’ register comprised records accumulated from successive registration and continuous voter registration exercises since 2011, using different technologies, operational arrangements and quality-control standards.

He noted that despite previous biometric comparisons and cleansing exercises, significant historical integrity concerns remained and required systematic attention.

According to him, the commission’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) initially flagged 1,545,052 records for further examination.

He, however, clarified that being flagged by the automated system did not automatically invalidate a registration, as each case was subjected to further verification and authorised adjudication.

The INEC chairman said 1,277,052 registrations were confirmed invalid and excluded before the publication of the preliminary voters’ register.

Following the seven-day public display exercise conducted between October 9 and 15, 2026, the commission received additional complaints, claims and objections from Nigerians.

He said another 268,000 cases were subjected to adjudication, out of which 217,722 were confirmed invalid and removed, while 50,278 were cleared and retained as valid registrations.

Amupitan added that subsequent screening identified another 113,886 invalid records, bringing the additional removals after the initial exercise to 331,608 and the overall total to 1,608,660.

He explained that the clean-up followed public complaints about suspected duplicate registrations, unusual names, questionable photographs and entries belonging to deceased persons.

The chairman said the exercise was conducted in accordance with Section 19(2) of the Electoral Act, 2026, which requires INEC to consider objections, claims and complaints raised against the preliminary register within the stipulated period.

He said the commission was expected to verify such complaints, make necessary corrections and ensure that the register was properly cleaned before publication of the final voters’ register.

Amupitan disclosed that investigations also uncovered deliberate violations of established registration procedures by some personnel, including the abuse of provisions designed to accommodate exceptional registration circumstances involving Persons Living with Disabilities.

He said the affected records had been identified and subjected to verification, while personnel allegedly involved in the irregularities had been listed for administrative investigation.

The INEC chairman further revealed that 54 officials across 10 states had been identified as allegedly complicit in the manipulation of the registration process.

He said the commission would take necessary disciplinary measures against the affected personnel, including possible prosecution, in accordance with the law.

Amupitan, however, cautioned that the latest clean-up had not completely addressed all integrity concerns surrounding the national voters’ register, particularly irregularities inherited from previous registration exercises.

He explained that many of the duplicate entries and suspicious photographs circulating on social media were linked to historical registration records captured between 2011 and 2023.

Consequently, the commission had resolved to extend its verification exercise to historical records, directing that duplicate and other obviously irregular entries should be removed after proper verification.

He stressed that the postponement of the proposed nationwide voter revalidation exercise until after the 2027 general elections did not mean INEC had suspended its existing mechanisms for identifying and removing invalid records.

The commission said it would publish the cleaned-up national register of voters in December ahead of the 2027 general elections.

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