Fresh reports reaching the desk of Africa Daily News, New York has revealed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has finally fixed the 31st of July for the date for the suspension of the ongoing nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The INEC National Commissioner, and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee Mr. Festus Okoye, made the announcement after an extraordinary meeting of the commission in Abuja on Friday.
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The decision according to him is to allow the commission to perform the legal requirements it has to undertake before the general elections. He disclosed that to ensure that more Nigerians were registered before the date, the hours of registration had been extended to eight hours daily from 9 am to 5 pm, including weekends.
Okoye said the commission took the decision at its extraordinary meeting where it discussed among other things, the suspension of the ongoing CVR.
This followed the judgment delivered by the Federal High Court on Wednesday, July 13 2022 in which it dismissed the suit filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) which had been seeking an extension of the exercise beyond June 30 2022.
The Court had affirmed that INEC remained at liberty to appoint a date of its choice to suspend the CVR, while provided it was not later than 90 days before the date fixed for the general elections as provided in Sec. 9(6) of the Electoral Act 2022.
Okoye said that in compliance with the interim injunction of the Court pending the determination of the substantive suit, and in order to enable more Nigerians to register, INEC continued with the CVR beyond June 30. He said that for that reason, the CVR had already been extended beyond June 30 for a period of 15 days.
“With the judgment of the Federal High Court, all legal encumbrances have now been removed. Accordingly, the commission has taken the following decisions:
“The CVR is hereby extended for another two weeks until Sunday, July 31, thereby bringing the total duration of the extension to 31 days (July 1 to July 31, 2022).
“The exercise has also been extended to eight hours daily from 9am – 5pm instead of the current duration of six hours (9am – 3pm) daily; and
“The exercise is also extended to include weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) as against only weekdays.”
