‘It’s unattainable’ – Ex-INEC chief calls for rationalization from Amupitan over 1.5m invalid voter information

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By Linda Ikeji
6 November 2026, 8:16 am

Former Director of Voter and Publicity Education on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, has questioned how 1.5 million questionable voter information had been allowed into the fee’s register.

Speaking throughout an interview on Arise Television, Osaze-Uzzi said that such anomalies mustn’t happen given the technological safeguards applied by INEC to dam a number of registrations and irregularities. He emphasised that the authorized standards for voter eligibility are clear and will streamline the method.

“The work ordinarily ought to be easier for the commission. The law is quite clear about who is entitled to be on the register: you’re a Nigerian citizen, you’re 18 years and above, and then you go there, and you register. It’s as simple as that,” Osaze-Uzzi stated.

Highlighting the necessary bodily presence and biometric seize required for registration, he expressed confusion over how tens of millions of questionable entries bypassed safety measures.

“You must turn up physically for the registration. So it should be a straightforward, simple process. But Nigeria, being what it is, the simpler it is, the more complex things, issues, and challenges arise from those things. I don’t know how up to 1.5 million entries can be made in the register. You’ve heard of AI. You’ve heard of multiple registrants. That ought not to be with things that have been put in place by the commission,” he added.

Osaze-Uzzi famous that the fee has but to make clear the precise timeframe coated by the database overview or specify how the flawed entries had been initially detected. He harassed that whereas instruments just like the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and synthetic intelligence can help in filtering duplicates, INEC should present a clear account of how the information entered the database within the first place.