INEC removes 1.6 million names from voters' list, 54 officials in trouble

Nigeria's electoral body, INEC, has found 54 people in 10 states who allegedly messed with the voter registration process. This manipulation included adding AI-generated names to the register.

At a press conference in Abuja on Monday, INEC Chairman Joash Amupitan talked about a review of the voters register. He said some registration staff intentionally ignored proper procedures and misused rules meant for special cases, like those for persons with disabilities.

Mr Amupitan, who is a professor, noted that they have identified and corrected the affected records. The staff members involved will face further investigation.

"Fifty-four persons across 10 states have been named as involved, and we will take the necessary disciplinary actions against them, which could include prosecution," the INEC chairman said.

To stop this from happening again, the commission is improving its registration checks. They will enhance biometric capture, authentication, and verification systems.

Mr Amupitan explained that their technical assessment looked into suspected multiple registrations, strange registration patterns, swapped photographs, and other irregularities in the registration process.

He also mentioned that they are looking into past irregularities in the register going back to 2011. Some duplicated names and photos that appeared on social media were linked to earlier registration efforts.

The commission will keep investigating the reasons behind these irregularities. They want to strengthen their procedures to keep the national register trustworthy.

INEC said this investigation began after Nigerians complained about issues in the preliminary voter register shown at registration areas from 9 to 15 October 2026. The register was later published online.

People raised alarms about suspicious profiles, including those thought to be AI-generated, in the voter list that went online on 26 October.

Complaints included cases of multiple registrations, strange names, fake or manipulated photos, and dead people still being on the list.

According to the chairman, the commission has removed 1,608,660 confirmed invalid registrations from the preliminary list created during the 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.

Mr Amupitan added that at their meeting on Monday, 9 November, they decided to erase records flagged through public complaints and obvious cases after proper checks.

INEC noted that its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) first flagged 1,545,052 of the 11,088,238 records gathered from the three phases of the 2025/2026 CVR for closer review.

After more public complaints, the commission looked into 268,000 cases. They found 217,722 to be invalid while 50,278 were cleared and kept, according to the INEC chairman.

He explained that many of the multiple registrations and questionable photos circulating on social media were from records taken between 2011 and 2023, not from the latest CVR exercise.

He noted that the national register has changed over the years through various registration and continuous voter registration exercises since 2011, using different technologies and quality standards.