With the 2023 general elections on the horizon, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says there are neither considerations of nor plans for postponement.
The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said this on Tuesday afternoon, while delivering a lecture at Chatham House on the topic ‘Nigeria’s 2023 Elections: Preparations and Priorities for Electoral Integrity and Inclusion’.
“We believe that by forthrightly sharing our experiences and discussing the challenges openly, we can surmount the challenges and ensure that our elections in Nigeria continue to get better.
“May I, on this note, once again reiterate our position that the commission is not contemplating, let alone planning, to postpone the 2023 general election. We are going ahead to conduct the election as scheduled,” he said at the London-based policy institute.
Yakubu also disclosed that the electoral body has concluded a policy on diaspora voting.
The Federal Government, in 2017, put the number of Nigerians in the diaspora at 17 million. However, many more citizens have since left for foreign countries in a wave commonly referred to as japa.
Addressing the recurrent issues around legalising diaspora voting, the INEC Chairman expressed hope that the legal obstacles preventing foreign-based Nigerians from voting will be cleared eventually.
“We have actually completed the policy as far as the commission is concerned and we identified two categories of Nigerians living outside the country,” he said.
“We have the OCV (out-of-country voting), mainly by service personnel and other Nigerians engaged in, say, foreign service, and those who are engaged in technical manpower.
“There is assistance organised by the Nigerian government for other countries, particularly in our sub-region. For now, they don’t vote. But the other leg of it is for Nigerians permanently resident outside Nigeria, that is, the diaspora voting.”