The Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday said it had registered about 54.9 million people as at January 31.
It said in a statement in Abuja that it projected that 62 million Nigerians would be registered by the close of the exercise on Saturday (tomorrow). The exercise started on January 15.
The statement by Mr. Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, was made available to journalists on Thursday just as policemen in Oyo State found Direct Data Capturing machines in a forest close to a predominantly Fulani settlement in Saki West Local Government Area.
INEC, however, explained that daily nationwide average had “lowered to 3.2 million as against about 4.3 million per day earlier recorded.”
It said that it expected that the daily average would decline even further as more people get registered.
Idowu had earlier on Thursday told the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja that the additional N6.6bn needed for the extended period (seven days) of the voter registration was part of the N87bn budget meant for the entire exercise.
INEC had on January 26 requested the extra vote to complete the exercise. But Idowu dismissed insinuations that the N6.6bn request was in addition to the N87bn already received by the electoral body.
“The money that was budgeted earlier on, much of it was for capital projects. By budgeting procedures, if there is any recurrent expenditure, you have to appropriate fresh money for it regardless of what you have left in your capital vote,” he said.
Idowu added that the budgeting procedure did not allow for the spending of funds earmarked for capital projects.
The INEC chairman’s spokesman also said the commission would pay additional N14,000 to each corps member participating as ad-hoc staff in the exercise.
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