By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
The immediate past Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Akwa Ibom state, Barrister Mike Igini has applauded his former employers for deleting no fewer than 2.7 million double registrants from the voters register for committing some infractions in the last Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise conducted by the commission.
INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu had on Tuesday at a National Endowment for Democracy event in Washington DC, United States of America (USA), revealed that 2.7 million double registrations were weeded out of the last CVR exercise conducted by the commission.
Prompt News Online reports that this action has however received the commendation of former Akwa Ibom state REC, Igini who said the latest pronouncement of INEC Chairman has vindicated his earlier stand that the Commission has what it takes to weed fake names from the voters register.
Said he: “I have always said that INEC is well equipped to weed out fake registrants with the use of technology such as the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), which the Commission has deployed to clean up the data of Nigerians that registered as voters at every stage of the CVR”.
The fiery REC argued that ABIS has the capacity detecting double and invalid registrations, adding that there is no way anyone will manipulate the voters register now with the help of ABIS.
Explaining further, Igini said: “a voter’s attempt to register becomes invalid when the ABIS detects that the same voter had previously registered, with his or her details, picture and fingerprint having a perfect match with an existing data”.
“Invalidity also applies when the data submitted by the voter is incomplete and cannot meet the criteria for registration. In the case of attempted double registration, the ABIS blocks and nullifies the voter’s second attempt to register while the existing data in the Register of Voters remains valid”.
Prompt News Online quoted the ex-REC further, “any attempt by a voter to register a second time amounts to double registration and contravenes Section 23 (d) of the Electoral Act 2022. Upon conviction, the culprit is liable to not more than N100, 000 fine or one year imprisonment or both”.
