For the first time in the history of Nigerian elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that it will be publishing its voter register online. If it isn’t obvious by now, that’s great news.
INEC previously published hard copies of its voter register in its offices across the 774 local government areas (LGA) in Nigeria. You’d have had to physically go there to confirm that your details were correct.
Thankfully, that era is over.
What led to the change?
Continuous calls from individuals and even political parties urging the commission to make the switch to a digital and easily accessible register has been on for some time now.
The amended Electoral Act 2022 now includes this change. Because of this, INEC won’t only publish the register at its offices, it must now upload on its website.
The lesson here is that exercising civic rights by applying pressure does pay off.
How can I check my voter registration details?
The online register is available for a two-week period starting from today, November 12, 2022 till November 25, 2022. Visit www.inecnigeria.org/display_register and follow the instructions.
What else do you need to know?
The new voter register has been cleaned up to account for double and invalid registrations. At the end of the continuous voter registration in July, 96.2 million Nigerians had been registered. After the cleanup, that number dropped to 93.5 million.
The point of this exercise is to scrutinize the register for errors. If you notice something off about your details, note it instantly and lay a complaint at the INEC office in your LGA of registration. You’d be given a form where you can note down the things you’d like corrected.
Remember, you have just two weeks. Good luck.
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