In a statement issued on Thursday by the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Commission described the claims as baseless and lacking any historical perspective on voter registration trends in the country.
“The attention of the Commission has been drawn to a press statement attributed to the spokesperson of a political party on the data published by INEC regarding the online pre-registration of voters. In particular, the statement claimed that the number of pre-registrants in Osun State defies ‘historical patterns and demographic realities.’ Nothing can be further from the truth,” Oyekanmi stated.
INEC explained that its online voter pre-registration portal, launched on August 18, 2025, had attracted 1,379,342 pre-registrants within the first week. Osun State led with 393,269 registrants, followed by Lagos State with 222,205 and the Federal Capital Territory with 107,682.
Oyekanmi stressed that Osun’s leading figures were not unusual, pointing to similar outcomes during the Commission’s 2021/2022 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise. At that time, Osun consistently topped the chart in online registrations, reaching 154,893 by the second week, 402,619 by the eleventh week, and 708,782 completed registrations by April 2022.
“If the party had been proactive enough, a simple review of past records already in the public domain would have revealed these facts,” he noted, emphasizing that INEC published weekly updates throughout the CVR exercise until its conclusion.
The Commission further clarified that online pre-registration alone does not complete the process, as registrants must physically appear at designated centers where their biometrics are captured to prevent double registration.
Oyekanmi highlighted the robustness of INEC’s Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), which was used in past exercises to detect and eliminate duplicate entries. This diligence, he said, ensured that over 14 million new voters were added ahead of the 2019 elections and 9.4 million before the 2023 elections, bringing the total number of registered voters to 93,469,008.
He assured Nigerians that INEC remains committed to transparency and would continue to provide timely updates on the ongoing registration process.
“While it is not the duty of the Commission to speculate why one state records more registrants than another, our responsibility is to ensure that only genuine, eligible Nigerians, as provided by the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act 2022, are allowed to register,” Oyekanmi said.
INEC also cautioned against the spread of misinformation, urging political parties and stakeholders to rely on verifiable data from the Commission’s official sources rather than speculative assumptions.
