A former Director of Voter and Publicity Education at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, has questioned how 1.5 million questionable records were allowed into the commission’s voter register despite measures designed to prevent multiple registrations and other irregularities.
Osaze-Uzzi raised the concerns during an interview on Arise Television, arguing that voter registration should be a straightforward process because the law clearly defines who qualifies to be registered.
He explained that eligible voters must be Nigerian citizens who are at least 18 years old and must appear physically for registration and biometric capture.
According to him, these requirements, alongside the commission’s verification systems, should make it difficult for multiple or ineligible entries to remain in the database.
“The work ordinarily ought to be easier for the commission. The law is quite clear about who is entitled to be on the register: you’re a Nigerian citizen, you’re 18 years and above, and then you go there, and you register. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
The former INEC director expressed surprise that as many as 1.5 million questionable entries could have been identified, considering the safeguards introduced by the commission.
He also pointed to multiple registration as one of the irregularities that INEC should be able to detect through its biometric verification systems.
However, Osaze-Uzzi said the commission needed to provide more information about the exercise, particularly the period covered and the process used to identify the questionable records.
He noted that it was unclear whether the review focused exclusively on the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise conducted last year or covered the entire voter register, dating back to the first registration exercise in 2011.
He maintained that INEC should explain how the entries got into its database despite its efforts to prevent duplicate registrations and maintain an accurate register.
Osaze-Uzzi identified the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) as one of the tools available to detect people who may have registered more than once.
He explained that fingerprint checks across different states and communities could help identify individuals whose biometric details appear in multiple registration records.
He also referred to the use of artificial intelligence (AI), which INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology had reportedly acknowledged, saying the commission needed to clarify how the technology was being deployed in the verification exercise.
Osaze-Uzzi further noted that INEC had reportedly cleaned up about 1.2 million records, but argued that the figure did not answer the more important question of how the questionable entries entered the register in the first place.
He said the commission needed to provide a detailed explanation of its findings and the measures taken to address the problem before the exercise could be properly assessed.
His comments come amid renewed scrutiny of the integrity of Nigeria’s voter register and the safeguards INEC uses to ensure that only eligible citizens are registered to vote.
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