The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) reported that as of December 2022, a total of 7,746 deceased voters were removed from the national voter list across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Victoria Etta-Messi, the Director of Voter Education and Publicity, shared this information with reporters on Thursday. She stated, “As of December 2022, 7,746 deceased individuals across the states and the FCT were expunged from the National Voter Register.” INEC explained that a comprehensive cleaning of the voter register is conducted ahead of every general election.
In its post-election review in December 2024, INEC acknowledged some ongoing challenges with the voter register cleanup, despite improvements in the registration process that added 12,298,944 new voters. One major difficulty is the incomplete nature of official death records, which complicates the removal of deceased voters from the list. “The lack of comprehensive official death records continues to hinder INEC’s efforts to eliminate deceased voters from the register,” the commission noted.
INEC also pointed out the issue of multiple or duplicate registrations, which it addressed by using the Automated Biometric Identification System. This system flagged and eliminated 2,780,756 invalid registrations, which accounted for 22.6% of the new voter entries nationwide. Additionally, the commission raised concerns over the drop in voter participation. The voter turnout for the 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections stood at 27.5%, a decrease from 35.6% in 2019. Some observers linked this reduction to the inflated voter register and urged stronger measures to cleanse it.
During the review, stakeholders recommended that INEC enhance its cooperation with organizations like the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to help identify and remove deceased voters from the list. They also suggested that individuals who have failed to vote in the last three elections be temporarily removed from the register and required to confirm their registration. “One of the key recommendations from this review was to improve collaboration with NIMC and NPC to identify and remove deceased voters from the register. Furthermore, individuals who have not participated in the last three elections could be suspended and asked to revalidate their registration,” INEC noted in its report.
