The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has yanked off over 1.6 million invalid voter registrations and nearly 1,750 entries belonging to deceased individuals following a comprehensive audit of its preliminary register.
The clean-up, announced Monday by INEC Chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN), comes on the heels of public outcry over widespread irregularities flagged during the October 2026 public display of the preliminary register.
The review was prompted by claims and objections raised by citizens and civil society organizations after the preliminary register was displayed nationwide between October 9 and 15, 2026.
Members of the public took to social media to expose questionable entries, including:
AI-Generated Photos: Artificial intelligence-generated headshots appearing on voter profiles.
Duplicate Entries: Multiple registration records for single individuals.
Deceased Voters & Unusual Names: Inactive or fictitious profiles flagged by local communities.
Addressing reporters, Prof. Amupitan confirmed that the commission received 11,088,238 total registration records across the three phases of the 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.
While INEC’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) initially flagged 1,545,052 entries for automated examination, Amupitan emphasized that automated flags required further manual adjudication before entries were formally removed.
54 Electoral Officials Face Prosecution
In addition to purging the voter database, INEC has launched an internal crackdown on staff involved in compromised registrations.
Amupitan revealed that 54 registration officials across 10 states have been identified for disciplinary sanctions and potential criminal prosecution over their alleged roles in registering invalid profiles.
Final Register Publication Date
In compliance with the Electoral Act, INEC confirmed that the final, cleaned-up register of voters will be officially published on December 16, 2026, ahead of upcoming electoral proceedings.
