The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was urged to remove fake and deceased Nigerians’ names from its voter list by the House of Representatives on Thursday.
Following the unanimous approval of a member’s motion of urgent public importance, Leke Abejide, the House made the call during the plenary session.
The motion was titled ‘Urgent Need for Independent National Electoral Commission to Develop Mechanism to Clean Up Its System of Dead and Fictitious Registered Voters.’
According to Abejide, INEC’s register is “full of millions of people who are dead and non-existent.”
“In the last general election, it was glaring and crystal clear that people that were long dead had their names still displayed in the voters’ register.
“Even my own deceased father, who passed on long ago, still has his name displayed on the board.
“Apart from dead voters, there are millions of fictitious voters who do not exist anywhere on this planet earth but have their names on INEC’s register of voters.
“It is believed that this came to be as a result of double or multiple registrations by Nigerians who had or have the intention of rigging elections, but with the advent of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, these faceless individuals can no longer vote anymore.”
Adopting the motion, the House resolved that “INEC should conduct vigorous public enlightenment for all Nigerians to be much aware of what makes the voters register bogus, which is the numbers of dead and fictitious persons.”
The lawmakers also resolved that INEC should develop a mechanism or software application, where families who lost their loved ones can report the demise of a particular Permanent Voter Card number so that it can be duly deleted from the Commission’s register, polling unit and ward.
“Whoever does not vote in two election cycles back to back be deleted from INEC register as non-existing human beings.”