Yunusa Tanko, the chief spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, led a delegation of supporters on a peaceful protest in Abuja on Thursday against alleged underage voters and other irregularities in the Independent National Electoral Commission’s recently issued register.
The demonstration, which began at the Unity Fountain and ended near the INEC headquarters, caused traffic delays on several key roadways.
Following the release of the preliminary voter register on its website ahead of the 2023 general election, INEC faced widespread criticism for numerous registrations and anomalies on the record.
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This sparked outrage on social media, particularly Twitter, where users shared profiles of people who had registered many times.
Festus Okoye, INEC Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, said that the indignation was unjustified because the preliminary voter registration had been released for people to analyze and submit complaints where they detected abnormalities or biodata issues.
He said, “We want people to look at the register and assist the commission to check whether their names have been properly spelt; whether their personal particulars have been properly captured; whether some pictures are not upside down; whether there are still names of deceased persons on the register; whether there are obviously underage persons on the register, so that we can correct them.
“We use our automated biometric identification system to remove multiple and double registrations and then we did what we called manual adjudication to remove obviously underage persons.”
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INEC also revealed on Thursday that at the end of the automated biometric identification system verification, it discovered 2,780,756 ineligible registrants in Kano State.
The amount was revealed by Zango Abdu, the new Resident Electoral Commissioner in Kano, during a meeting with election stakeholders.
Abdu also announced at the end of the exercise that 12,298,944 Nigerians successfully registered as new voters.
Tanko told Newsmen on Thursday that the LP rally at INEC headquarters was unavoidable in order to dispel fears of rigging and vote-buying ahead of the 2023 elections.
“The purpose was to protest the issue of underage voters and multiple registrations as widely reported and demand for the PVCs for those who are yet to be given,” he said.
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While dismissing speculations that some demonstrators collapsed due to exhaustion, the LP campaign council spokesman described the outing as a “huge success.”
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