INEC pushes back as opposition rejects S’West voter figures

Two opposition political parties, the African Democratic Congress and the Labour Party have queried the authenticity of the claim by the Independent National Electoral Commission that the South-West accounted for the highest percentage of the pre-registration numbers in its ongoing Continuous Voter Registration exercise.

The electoral umpire, however, dismissed the claims as unfounded, noting it was based on a lack of historical understanding of past voter registration trends.

The ADC in a statement issued on Thursday by its Acting National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, had questioned the registration process in the South West, stressing that the figures from Osun State in particular contradict both historical trends and demographic realities.

According to INEC’s figures, Osun State recorded nearly 400,000 new registered voters, a claim faulted by the ADC which called for a forensic audit of the figures.

“The African Democratic Congress has viewed the first set of data released by the Independent National Electoral Commission on new Continuous Voter registrations with great concern.

“According to INEC’s figures, Osun State alone recorded 393,269 pre-registrations in just one week. To put this in context, Osun added only 275,815 new voters between 2019 and 2023, a period of four years. In other words, Osun has now supposedly registered more people in seven days than it managed to do in an entire electoral cycle of four years.

“Even at its highest point of political mobilisation in 2022, Osun has never produced more than 823,124 votes cast in the Governorship Election. Now, by some miracle, nearly 20 percent of all eligible adults in the state have rushed to register. This is not just unusual, it is statistically implausible.

“The anomalies become even more glaring when viewed in the context of the overall registration report. Across the six geopolitical zones, the South West alone accounts for 848,359 pre-registrations, an astonishing 67 per cent of the national total. By contrast, the entire South East recorded just 1,998 pre-registrations.

“To further illustrate, three states Osun, Lagos, and Ogun make up 54.2 per cent of all pre-registrations in Nigeria, while five states combined Ebonyi, Imo, Enugu, Abia, and Adamawa barely recorded 4,153, or 0.2 per cent, while the entire North East recorded just 6.1 per cent,” the ADC statement read in part.

Speaking in a telephone interview with The PUNCH, the Interim National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Tony Akeni urged Nigerians to be vigilant, saying the claim by INEC should not be taken lightly.

He said, “We are tired of INEC’s shenanigans. Even their claims of having registered prison inmates is an open fraud. They are just giving us advance notice that the forthcoming elections would be as fraudulent or more fraudulent than the past. Nigerians should be vigilant as they go out to register so that we will not see names like Michael Jackson and Donald Trump in our voter register in 2027.”

But  the All Progressives Grand Alliance dismissed ADC’s reaction to the South-West figures, noting that the David Mark-led party was simply being alarmist.

Speaking with our correspondent, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Ejimofor Opara said the credibility of INEC is not in doubt.

He said, “Figures don’t lie. To what extent has the ADC gone to mobilise their members to register across the states of the federation? If the data is showing that there are more newly registered voters  in the South-West than any other geo-political zone, the much we can say is that we don’t have the data with us.

“If we see the data, we can interrogate it. If the body responsible for the registration exercise is saying based on the data available to them, the South-West has more voters in the CVR going on, then, that is what it is. There is a need for circumspection.

“INEC credibility is not in doubt. We believe they will do the right thing by carrying everyone along and capturing them in the process. ADC is just being alarmist. We are mobilising our members to go and register. At the end of the day, the data will speak for itself.”

Reacting to the PVC  figure, the Osun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party said it could be an indication of the people’s readiness for the coming governorship poll in the state.

The All Progressives Congress on the other hand noted that only the Independent National Electoral Commission could explain how it came about the figures recorded by the state.

The two parties stated these in separate responses to the alarm raised by the ADC regarding Osun’s figures in the CVR exercise.

The Osun APC spokesperson, Mr Kola Olabisi, said since no other organisation can be responsible for the voter registration, the party should not have been asked questions about the figures.

“I want to believe that another person cannot be doing INEC’s work. If there is a proper query, let it be brought up so that people will know that some people are not acting as meddlesome interlopers,” Olabisi said.

Also in reaction to ADC, Osun PDP spokesperson, Oladele Bamiji, said the party would investigate the figures.

He said, “We are all alarmed like any other political party and persons on how INEC came up with the figure, but what we can only say is that the people of Osun are really up for the election. But that is not to say that the figure is not alarming. We are also putting heads together to see what happened.

“We have our ways of monitoring our people who have not registered before but are registering now. Those who are of voting age and our supporters who are now registering.”

Meanwhile, INEC in a statement issued Thursday by the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, stated, “The attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission  has been drawn to a press statement attributed to the spokesperson of a political party on the data published by the Commission on the online pre-registration of voters.

“In particular, the statement claimed that the number of pre-registrants in Osun State defies “historical patterns and demographic realities.” Nothing can be further from the truth,” the statement read.

INEC reiterated that its online pre-registration portal was launched on August 18, 2025, with in-person registration following on August 25.

Within the first week, 1,379,342 Nigerians had pre-registered online. Osun State recorded the highest number of registrants at 393,269, followed by Lagos State with 222,205, and the Federal Capital Territory with 107,682.