2023 election: INEC assures that minors will not be allowed to vote

Amid allegations of underage voter registration ahead of the 2023 elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured the Nigerian electorate that citizens who have not reached the legal voting age will not be permitted to vote.

Victor Aluko, INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, stated this during a live appearance on Channels Television’s program on Sunday.

“I assure you that the register will be cleaned up completely and no underage voter will vote in 2023. After we finish with the claims and objections on Friday, we will be taking in again for further claims based on the complaints of the people,” he said.

“That is why it is important that persons who noticed any issues at all with the register should complain through the right channels where they can be documented.”

Aluko stated that once the complaints were compiled, INEC’s revision officers at various levels would be able to work on them.

“If you complain and you do not let us know that complaint, then how do we work on the complaints?

“That is why I’m saying we take in The register and then we work on the register, and at the end of the day, we have a very clean register as we prepare for the general elections.

“And I’m assuring you that no underage person will come to our polling units to come and vote on election day,” he said.

For the first time in the country’s electoral history, INEC made the entire register public on its website earlier this month.

Many Nigerians, however, have reported numerous cases of underage voters and double registration.

INEC promises to address registration issues

The Herald had reported that INEC promised to address all issues raised about the national voter register ahead of the 2023 elections.

“We wish to reassure Nigerians that the Commission is committed to transparency and accountability in all its activities,” INEC said.

“We hope that at the end of the exercise, the Commission, with the involvement of citizens, would have improved the quality of the Register of Voters, which is the bedrock of a successful election.”

The Commission said cleaning up the voter register, which contains all the voters dating back to the 2011 registration exercise, was a “continuous and painstaking process over time.”