The African Democratic Congress has expressed concern over what it described as statistically implausible figures released by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party warned that the figures, if left unchecked, could undermine confidence in Nigeria’s electoral process.
The ADC called on INEC to explain how Osun State recorded nearly 400,000 new registrations in seven days while the South West region accounted for an extraordinary 67 percent of all pre registrations nationwide.
According to the party, INEC’s report indicated that Osun added only 275,815 new voters between 2019 and 2023, making the first week registration higher than the total for the previous four years.
“Across the six geopolitical zones, the South West registered 848,359 voters or 67 percent of the national total, while the entire South East recorded just 1,998 pre registrations.”
“Three states, Osun, Lagos and Ogun, accounted for over 54 percent of all new registrations, while five states in the South East combined barely recorded 0.2 percent.”
The figures, the party said, suggested either a technical glitch in INEC’s digital registration system or more troubling possibility of deliberate manipulation of data to lay the ground for a more sinister agenda in the coming elections.
The ADC urged INEC to conduct a full forensic audit of the first week pre registration data, including a state by state breakdown of physical and online registrations, server logs, bandwidth distribution and regional access reports.
The party also called on opposition parties, election monitoring groups and the international community, including the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS, to demand clarity.
The ADC concluded that the voter register is the backbone of Nigeria’s elections and warned that unresolved questions could threaten national stability.