The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to explain what it described as “statistically implausible” figures emerging from the South-West in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.
In a statement issued on Thursday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC expressed concern over what it termed an “astonishing spike” in online voter pre-registration from the region, warning that such anomalies could undermine the integrity of future elections.
According to Abdullahi, the South-West recorded 848,359 pre-registrations in the first week of the exercise—an unprecedented 67% of the national total. By contrast, the entire South-East recorded only 1,998 pre-registrations.
The party pointed out that Osun State alone recorded 393,269 new voters in just seven days, far surpassing the 275,815 new voters it registered between 2019 and 2023.
“In other words, Osun has supposedly registered more people in one week than it managed in an entire four-year electoral cycle. Even at the height of political mobilisation in 2022, Osun only produced 823,124 votes in the governorship election. By some miracle, nearly 20% of all eligible adults in the state have now rushed to register. This is not just unusual; it is statistically implausible,” the statement read.
The ADC further noted that Osun, Lagos, and Ogun accounted for 54.2% of all pre-registrations nationwide, while Ebonyi, Imo, Enugu, and Abia combined barely recorded 4,153 (0.2%). The entire North-East registered only 6.1% of total pre-registrations.
“These numbers suggest either another technical ‘glitch’ in INEC’s digital registration system or a more troubling possibility of deliberate manipulation to lay the groundwork for a sinister electoral agenda,” the party alleged. “In either case, INEC owes Nigerians a full explanation.”
The party stressed that a credible voter register is fundamental to fair elections, warning that any compromise at this stage threatens national stability.
“Nigerians still remember the bitter consequences of flawed voter rolls and technical failures in past elections. Our democracy cannot withstand another,” it said.
The ADC therefore demanded a full forensic audit of the first week’s pre-registration data, including a detailed state-by-state breakdown of both physical and online registrations. It also urged INEC to disclose server logs, bandwidth allocation, and regional access reports for its registration portal.
The party called for a united front among opposition parties to demand clarity, urging election monitoring groups, fact-checking organisations, and legal advocacy bodies to independently scrutinise the figures.
It further appealed to the international community, the United Nations, African Union, ECOWAS, and Nigeria’s democratic partners, to closely monitor developments ahead of the 2027 elections.
“The credibility of our democracy cannot be left to chance. Silence in the face of these anomalies would amount to complicity. History has shown that when questions about the voter register go unanswered, the consequences extend beyond politics to national stability,” the ADC warned.
