The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced that over seven million online registrants did not complete their registration at the agency’s offices across the country.

The commission stated that the people that fell within this range were those who completed their pre-registration online but failed to present themselves at accredited INEC registration centres for the capturing of their biometrics.

According to the data on INEC’s website, out of the 10,487,972 citizens who registered online, only 3,444,378 presented themselves at INEC centres for physical registration.

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The continuous voter registration, which began in June 2021, was extended by one month after its initial closure on June 30.

The statistics further revealed that there were 12,298,944 new registrants who completed their voter registration before the July 31 deadline. This figure adds to the 84 million voters in the country as of the last general election.

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The data also showed that about 8.7 million of the new voters are youths between the ages of 18 and 34, 2.4 million are between ages 39 and 49, over 950,000 elderly citizens are between ages 50 and 69, and more than 120,000 citizens are 70 and above.

Meanwhile, in a press statement released by the agency and signed by Festus Okoye, chairman of INEC’s information and voter education committee, on August 1, the agency denied affiliations with a website urging citizens to get their voter card registration done online.

“Barely 24 hours after the suspension of voter registration, the attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been drawn to an online site urging Nigerians to enroll for ‘VOTER CARD (PVC)’ registration claiming that the Federal Government has approved individual VOTER CARD (PVC) registration online to avoid unnecessary crowd in the ‘NIMC CENTERS,'” the statement reads in part.

“The Commission states unequivocally that the site is not linked to the Commission and the link/portal is spurious and from a dubious source.

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“The Independent National Electoral Commission is the only body constitutionally and legally mandated to conduct the registration of persons qualified to vote in any election in Nigeria and to update and revise the register when the needs arises . The commission is solely responsible for organizing, undertaking, and supervising national elections in the country and does not share this responsibility with anybody or organization.

“Members of the public are strongly advised not to succumb to the antics of online scammers and should avoid such fake sites.”