Minors Who Apparently Try To Vote Will Be Arrested, INEC Says

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says apparently minors trying to vote during the 2023 elections will be arrested.

Festus Okoye, the INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, said in an interview on Monday’s Arise Television’s The Morning Show.

According to Okoye, to address issues related to minors’ registration, INEC has brought all its staff to areas where minors are registered.

“They will appear before a special panel of the commission and it is still ongoing. We have also made it very clear that any visibly underage person should not on any account, approach any of our polling units on election day, because if the person does, the person will definitely be arrested,” he said.

The parents will also be arrested for aiding and abetting such a venture.”

Speaking further, Okoye said the clean-up of the voters’ register is ongoing, adding that Nigerians would be pleased with the end result.

“Some of the data you saw on social media about underage registration were some registrations that took place from 2011 to before the 2019 election,” he said.

This commission had the courage to publish the entire register of voters and ask Nigerians to also check to ensure no malicious registrations have gone into our voters’ register.

“So, we have harvested all the claims and objectives and are cleaning up the voters’ register. We assure Nigerians, that the voters’ register we are going to go into the 2023 general election with will be one they will be proud of.

‘As of today, the voters’ register is hovering around 93.5 million registered voters. On January 16, the commission will publish the official register that will be used for 2023 elections.”