The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) earlier this week presented a soft copy of the updated voter register to the 18 political parties in the country.
As Nairametrics previously reported, the register contains a total of 93,469,008 voters, with 44,414,846 female voters and 49,054,162 male voters.
Of the total registered voters, the number of young people between the ages of 18 and 34 stood at 37,060,399, representing 39.65% of total registered voters while the elderly between the ages of 50 and 69 stood at 17,700,270, representing 18.94% of the total registered voters.
Earlier in October last year. INEC revealed that it had weeded out about 2.7 million invalid voter registrations from its database during its comprehensive clean-up of the registration data.
Top 10 states by PVC registrations: Listed below are the top ten Nigerian states where many of the 93,469,008 registered voters are –
- Lagos: 7,060,195
- Kano: 5,921,370
- Kaduna: 4,335,208
- Rivers: 3,537,190
- Katsina: 3,4516,719
- Oyo: 3,276,765
- Bauchi: 2,749,268
- Plateau: 2,789,528
- Benue: 2,777,727
- Niger: 2,698,344
Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, FCT, recorded 1,570,307 registered voters for the 2023 General elections.
The result also shows that of the ten highest registered states by voters, 7 are in the North and 3 in the South( Lagos, Rivers and Oyo).
First-time voters: As many as 43% of Nigerians eligible to vote in the 2023 general elections would be first-time voters according to a report by socioeconomic research firm, SBM Intelligence. They said:
- “The survey’s findings showed that 97% of respondents desire to vote. Of this figure, 94% completed the CVR process (physical capture); 90% tried to pick up their PVCs and 79% successfully picked up their PVCs.
- “This data suggests that more Nigerians are willing to vote in 2023. Crucially, a very significant 43% are first-time voters, mostly young people”.
PVC collection extension: Meanwhile, The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the extension of the deadline for the collection of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) by about a week.
Nairametrics reported that the extension may be linked to the complaints and frustrations expressed by eligible voters over the delay and the very slow process involved in the PVC collection exercise.
The election umpire who had earlier fixed January 22, 2023, as the collection deadline for these PVCs, extended the deadline to Sunday, January 29, 2023.
