The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration exercise will end on Sunday, July 26, 2026. It has, therefore, urged prospective registrants who have not yet registered to take advantage of the remaining hours before the window closes.
This comes amid calls by some opposition political parties for an extension over concerns that millions of citizens could be excluded from the 2027 general elections, it was reported.
But Mohammed Haruna, INEC National Commissioner, told Punch in an interview that the commission would not extend the deadline, stressing that the registration exercise had to close to enable the electoral body to begin cleaning the data already collected.
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Haruna said the commission’s Information Technology team and the Voter Registration Department would start processing the data immediately after the registration window closed.
“The INEC will roll out its Automated Biometric Identification System to identify and purge multiple registrations before the provisional voters’ register is displayed for public scrutiny,” he said. “The final number of newly registered voters will be known only after the biometric verification and the claims and objections process.
“Voter registration ends at midnight Sunday,” he said. There won’t be an extension. “We have so many things we need to do at the back end. If we don’t draw a line we can’t make a clean copy of what’s been posted.
“We have an automatic biometric system that will check if someone has registered more than once. They will make a list of claims and objections. That is, if anybody thinks that a name should not be on the register, or if he has some claims, for instance, that his name has been omitted or some of his details are wrong.
“So it’s after all that has been done that we will have a final figure, which we will now put on top of the existing 93 million or so. That then becomes the voters’ register. “We have to give a copy to every political party before the election.
Haruna likewise dismissed fears that the closure may shut out some Nigerians from the 2027 electoral process, saying that INEC could only take cognisance of eligible citizens who showed up for registration.
He said the commission had recorded registrations through its online platform, physical registration centres and INEC offices across the 774 local government areas.
The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Dayo Oketola, told the publication that the decision to end the Continuous Voter Registration exercise was in conformity with constitutional and legal provisions and necessary to prepare for the 2027 general elections.
Oketola said the registration portal was not under any unusual pressure, adding that the system was built to accommodate the number of applicants for the exercise.
Oketola dismissed fears that the suspension of the registration exercise would disenfranchise eligible Nigerians, saying that the commission embarked on massive nationwide voter education and awareness campaigns to encourage participation.
Oketola said the registration exercise must be stopped to allow the commission to conclude several critical activities before the elections. “If we allow the registration of voters to continue forever, it would disrupt the commission’s preparations.
