Census, Integrity of Voters’ Data and Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential Elections

Reliable census data is inevitably required to ensure a voter register’s integrity. Census details provide the needed control data for validating information provided by persons registering as new potential voters, updating records on existing registered voters and providing information on those who have attained the age of franchise or even died. In addition, well-managed census data can circumvent some abuses of the electoral processes, such as underage registration and voting, the introduction of fictitious or foreign names into the register and over-registration of any constituency. These forms of abuses of an electoral process are sources of political tension that could snowball into agitations. For instance, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) recently alleged a plot by the ruling party to compromise the 2023 elections by manipulating the voters’ register by including fictitious names and inflating the population of selected constituencies to forge electoral results in the forthcoming presidential election.

This edition of Nextier SPD Policy Weekly presents reflections on the nexus between voters’ registers and broad citizen data from national census records for maintaining and managing transparent and dependable electoral records.

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