The African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have disagreed over the credibility of voter pre-registration figures recently released by the Commission, demanding a forensic audit of the data.
ADC, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, raised concerns over what it called “statistically implausible” numbers, particularly from Osun State.
According to the party, Osun recorded 393,269 pre-registrations in just one week, higher than the total of 275,815 new voters registered in the state between 2019 and 2023.“These fantastic figures suggest either another technical ‘glitch’ in INEC’s digital system or a more troubling possibility of deliberate manipulation of data to lay the ground for a sinister agenda,” Abdullahi said.
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But INEC dismissed the claims as unfounded, insisting that the numbers released were consistent with past records.
Responding to a Daily Trust inquiry, Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, said Osun State’s lead was not unusual. He recalled that during the 2021/2022 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, Osun also consistently topped the charts.
“For instance, within the first 24 hours of launching the portal in June 2021, Osun led the country with 59,331 accounts created. By the 11th week, it had recorded over 400,000 pre-registrations, ahead of every other state,” Oyekanmi said.
He explained that pre-registration figures are only provisional, as registrants are required to complete their biometrics in person at designated centres before being added to the national register. He added that INEC deploys its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) to detect double registrations and ensures the integrity of the voter roll.
Oyekanmi appealed to political parties to avoid raising alarms based on conjecture, urging stakeholders to rely on verifiable data available in the Commission’s public repositories.
