TheCable

About 68, 833, 476 Nigerians will vote in the February general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission has disclosed.

Presenting the voter register to political parties and Nigerians in general, Chidi Nwafor, director of information communication technology at INEC, said the figure was arrived at after the commission removed all anomalies in the voter registration process.

According to Nwafor, about 73. 5 million Nigerians had registered‎ to vote in the elections, but more than 4 million did double registration, hence they were weeded.

Commenting on the process, Attahiru Jega, chairman of INEC, explained that thorough work had gone into ensuring that the actual figure of eligible voters was captured.

He added that the decentralisation ‎ of the distribution of permanent voter cards was done with the aim of ensuring all eligible registered voters were not disenfranchised.

Jega announced that the list of candidates for the national assembly and presidential elections scheduled for February 14 had been published on the commission’s website.

“For the presidential election, there are 14 candidates duly nominated by political parties. For the senatorial election, there are 739 candidates, and for the house of representatives election, there are 1,780 candidates. The list of nominated candidates for state elections will be published on January 27, 2015,” he said.

“The commission is happy to say that it has received from government all the funds required to conduct the 2015 general election. We can say in effect that funding is no longer a challenge to the forthcoming elections.

The INEC chairman also emphasised that the electoral body was ready to conduct elections in the all the states.

“INEC has always said it is preparing to conduct elections in all the 36 states and the federal capital, including the three north-eastern states experiencing the challenge of insurgency,” he said.

“The commission, however, will work closely with security agencies who have the constitutional responsibility for securing the election environment.”

Reacting to a question‎ on multiple registration, Jega stated that it was an offence to deliberately register twice.

He said that although offenders ordinarily ought to be prosecuted, it  was impossible to prosecute more than 4 million people who registered twice, describing it as Herculean.

He also insisted that only PVCs would be used in the general election, dismissing reports that the use of temporary voter cards was permissible.

Regarding whether schools would be closed during the elections, Jega said that the commission had not taken a position on that, but hinted that it was likely that some schools would be closed.