INEC begins prosecution of 93,000 fake voters

INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission will from this week begin the prosecution of the 93,000 people that registered more than once in the last voters’ registration in Anambra State.

This was stated on Saturday by the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukaogu, at a press briefing in Awka.

Onukaogu said the commissioner of police had been given the particulars of 72 impersonators, who would be arrested and charged to court.

“We are working with the commissioner of police and all the 93,000 people will be duly prosecuted,” he said.

The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had last week stated that Anambra State topped the list of ghost voters with 93,000 double registrations.

Onukaogu said it was detected that some of the impersonators were registered up to four times each.

“In the morning, one of them would dress like an Hausa man and be captured. In the afternoon, he would dress like an Igbo man and would be registered. The same man would dress like a Yoruba man in the evening and would be captured. Some people appeared four times,” he said.

But he said the data capturing system used by INEC was able to detect these multiple registrations and had fished out the culprits.

The REC said the defects in previous registration of voters had been corrected and the story would be different in 2015.

“In 2015, we will have machines that will display the biometrics of voters. And it will declare loudly which people are qualified to vote or are not qualified to vote,” he said.

The INEC boss however did not say if there will be a machine that will disqualify votes cast by people that had voted at least once before in the same election.

The REC said the commission would commence the continuous registration process on Monday in the 326 wards in Anambra State.

He said the display of voters’ registers would be done between Friday and Sunday for the 4,608 polling units in the state and voters were free to check up their names and raise the relevant complaints.

He pointed out that the continuous registration would however affect only people that became 18 years after 2011 and those that moved into Anambra State during the same period.

Onukaogu said those that lost their voters’ cards during last year’s flood disaster would have to swear to an affidavit and get police extracts to be able to get replacement of their cards.

He said due to some error in the former registration process, 53 polling units did not have any registered voter. Thirty four of those units, he said, were in Awka South Local Government Area.

He added that voters in the affected units would be registered afresh.

Source: Punch News