CHIDI ANSELM ODINKALU argues that the INEC electoral register is suspect
Ahead of Nigeria’s common elections in January and February 2027, Africa Confidential warns that “turnout in the elections is likely to be even lower than the average 26.7% four years ago. Nigerian voters are among the least enthusiastic in the world…. Out of more than 93.4 million registered voters, 24.9 million total votes were cast. This represented an 8.03-point decline from the 2019 elections and was the lowest voter turnout since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999.”
Complaints about “voter apathy” are the staple of Nigeria’s electoral commentariat. The numbers and patterns seem to bear this out. In 1999, turnout was 52.3%. Officially, it grew to 69% in 2003; and has fallen since then to 57.5% in 2007; 53.7% in 2011; 43.7% in 2015; and 34.8% in 2019, earlier than cratering to 26.7% in 2023.
These claims require us to accord credibility to the underlying numbers from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). That begins with perception within the baseline of INEC’s electoral register in opposition to which turnout is judged. If that register is flawed, then all calculations hinged on it additionally endure.
Yet, the foundational affliction underlying of Nigeria’s elections just isn’t in INEC’s numbers. Rather, it’s an absence of credible demographic administration system in opposition to which to confirm INEC’s claims.
The National Population Commission (NPoPC) claims 53% of births within the nation are registered and solely 10% of deaths are. The implications of this for the credibility of the electoral register ought to fear everybody.
To ensure, electoral rolls are ambulatory. People aren’t static: we transfer; relocate, and die too. This is why a demographic administration system is important. In Nigeria, this doesn’t exist.
A register of voters doesn’t routinely change as a result of an individual whose title is on it has died. But an individual must also not be on the register one decade after their demise. In Nigeria, there is no such thing as a manner of stopping this.
These outline the numerous curiosities about Nigeria’s voting numbers. First, they bear no rational relationship to wider demographic developments. Nigeria’s sample of supposedly precipitous collapse in voter turnout, as an example, is inversely proportional to each baseline inhabitants and civic gripe.
In 1999, Nigeria’s inhabitants was estimated to be 115,766,000. Nigeria’s current population is estimated at 244 million. That means the nation has greater than doubled its inhabitants since 1999 by 128,234,000 or 110.77%.
Over the identical interval, the voting roll has grown by 81.4%, whilst life expectancy in the intervening quarter century has increased by about 9 years. If life expectancy is rising with the inhabitants and crude demise charges falling, then the speed of development within the voting inhabitants ought to ordinarily outstrip the underlying inhabitants development charge.
In 20 years from 1999 to 2023, Nigeria’s inhabitants rose by about 87% however the register of voters grew by 36,530,063 or 63.05%. The mis-match between the 2 trendlines is critical.
In 1999, Nigeria had 57.94 million registered voters. This rose by 2.88 million or 4.97% to 60.82 million in 2003 after which by a mere three-quarters of 1,000,000 or 1.23% to 61.57 million in 2007. By 2011, the variety of registered voters climbed by over 12 million (20.5%) to 73.53 million, representing a mean yearly development charge of practically 5.12%, the place beforehand it had grown by 1.24 % in 1999-2003 and 0.3% between 2003-2007.
By 2015, the inhabitants of registered voters fell to 68.83 million, a deficit of 4.7 million voters or 6.39%, representing an annualized charge of reversal of 1.6%. Yet, over the identical interval, Nigeria, a rustic with a median age of just below 18 years, had grown in inhabitants from an estimated 162.9 million to 181.2 million, a rise of 15.174 million or 11.23%, representing an annual development charge of two.8%.
The patterns from these numbers don’t lend themselves to straightforward explanations. It is feasible to invest about what could clarify this vital delta in development between the overall inhabitants and register of voters. Rational elements equivalent to migration; company dysfunctions in INEC; civic inertia or disaffection; or excessive transaction prices could also be related. But there stay worrying patterns that aren’t simply accounted for even by all these.
As the Justice Uwais presidential committee on electoral reform identified in its 2008 report, a lot of what handed for electoral numbers in Nigeria earlier than 2011 was voodoo. Just for instance this level, the INEC does not have a breakdown of official results for the 2007 presidential elections but there are turnout figures for that election.
This results in a second challenge: Nigeria’s register of voters has all the time had invalid voters. The present register of voters in Nigeria dates again to November 2010 when the Attahiru Jega-led INEC set about establishing a reputable register of voters for the nation. The Commission had restricted time to authenticate the uncooked information earlier than the 2011 common election.
When the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) completed its work on the 2011 register practically 4 years later, INEC invalidated 4.7 million entries, which diminished the variety of registered voters from 73.53 in 2011 to 68.83 in 2015 however not earlier than these invalid 4.7 million have been eligible to vote in 2011.
(*103*), the most important downside could also be lifeless voters. That’s an oxymoron as a result of the lifeless shouldn’t vote. In 2022, INEC explained that it couldn’t expunge the lifeless from the register as a result of “the country does not have reliable data of births and deaths and the commission cannot engage in arbitrary removal of the names of individuals it suspects are deceased.”
This has not modified. It means we’ve no manner of understanding what number of ghosts there are among the many 103.4 million on INEC’s present register. By failing to display the register as required by law, the Commission doesn’t even care to disabuse suspicions that its register could also be bloated. Its response to non-compliance is institutional insouciance.
Nigeria’s register of voters is the traditional Hotel California: it’s “programmed to receive” and, for anybody with their title on it, “you can check out any time you like but you can never leave.” The implications of this for electoral integrity are staggering.
An illustrative train could assist. Nigerian regulation permits adults alone to vote. The World Bank estimates the nation’s crude mortality charge at 11.64 per 1000. Applied to a baseline from 2011, that’s about 34,748,845 lifeless in 15 years.
But not all these will likely be adults. Mortality charge for under-5s is 117 per 1000 dwell births. That’s 700,000 to 855,000 under-five child deaths yearly. To 2025, that might be about 12 million lifeless under-fives since 2011.
The nation additionally reported an estimated median of 111,425 deaths among 5–14-year-olds from 1990 to 2016. Applied once more to a 2011 baseline, that’s one other 1,671,375. In complete, there might be as much as 13.67 million infants, youngsters, and adolescent deaths since 2011.
Adjusting the crude demise charges for mortality amongst infants, youngsters, and adolescents, there might be about 18-20 million individuals liable to be lanced from the electoral register since 2011. Applying the identical methodology to a baseline of the 2023 register, that might be as much as 5 million lifeless individuals alone on the register because the final election.
In its newest announcement, nevertheless, INEC stated it captured a complete of 10,772,421 new voters. It has not accounted for deaths or pure attrition.
Separately, on the finish of 2025, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, (IDMC) reported that Nigeria had at least 3.7 million in internal displacement. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees provides up to 478,000 Nigerian refugees outdoors the nation. Admittedly not all of those are adults of voting age.
Almost assuredly, INEC’s 103.4 million voters is corpulent. When you have a look at the numbers on INEC’s register and account for the truth that the baseline information goes again to 2011, there’s a cheap chance that as much as about 25% on it might be lifeless or dud. That ought to put all of the discuss voter apathy in perspective. But this story has a uniquely Nigerian sting: our diaspora on earth could not have a vote, however we could have a diaspora in Heaven with a veto.
A lawyer and a instructor, Odinkalu will be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu
