Voter Registration Ends Today as INEC Rejects Opposition’s Extension Demand

By: Abudu Olalekan

The clock runs out today.

After weeks of queues, portal crashes rumours and last-minute rushes, the Independent National Electoral Commission is closing the Continuous Voter Registration exercise — and it has no intention of blinking. Opposition parties have asked for more time. Civil society groups have practically begged. INEC’s answer is the same one it gave last week: no.

Their worry, the ones asking for extension, is simple enough. Millions of Nigerians who want a say in 2027 may not get one.

Reportersroom gathered that while opposition parties and CSOs pushed for the window to stay open, INEC spent the weekend doing the opposite — telling anyone still dragging their feet to move now, before the door shuts.

The commission put it plainly in a notice on its X handle on Saturday. Registration ends today, July 26. Centres open 9am, close 3pm. That’s it.

“Your future won’t wait. Neither should you. The Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise ends Sunday, 26 July 2026,” the commission stated.

INEC also reminded people that the process can still be started online through its CVR portal, or completed at INEC offices and designated centres around the country for anyone who needs a human being to help them through it.

There’s a legal side to all this too. The new Electoral Act requires INEC to stop registration, updating and revision of the voters’ register 90 days before an election — time it needs to clean data, print Permanent Voter Cards and sort out the logistics nobody thinks about until they go wrong. The same law says the register must be displayed for claims and objections, so citizens can flag missing names, wrong details, and whatever else slipped through.

INEC: There will be no extension

INEC National Commissioner Mohammed Haruna didn’t leave much room for hope when Reportersroom reached him. The deadline stands. Full stop.

“By midnight on Sunday, voter registration ends. There won’t be any extension. There are so many things that we need to do at the back end. We have to draw a line; otherwise, we won’t be able to produce a clean copy of what has been posted,” he said.

According to him, the commission’s IT team and the Voter Registration Department start work on the data the moment the window closes. No breathing space.

Haruna said the Automated Biometric Identification System would then be turned loose on the register to sniff out people who registered twice — or five times — before any provisional list goes public.

“We have this automatic biometric system that will check whether somebody has registered more than once. They will publish the register for claims and objections. That is, if anybody thinks a name shouldn’t be on the register, or if he has some claims, for instance, that his name has been omitted or some of his details are incorrect,” he said.

So the real number? Nobody knows yet. Not until the machines and the objections process have both had their turn.

“So, it’s after all that has been done that we will have a final figure, which we will now add to the existing 93 million or so. That will then become the voters’ register. We are mandated to give every political party a copy ahead of the election,” Haruna added.

Asked about the Nigerians who’ll be locked out of 2027 by today’s cut-off, he was blunt in a quiet way — the commission can only count people who showed up. INEC opened online registration, physical centres and its offices in all 774 local government areas. Beyond that, he suggested, the ball was in the citizens’ court.

Dayo Oketola, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, backed the position. The closure, he said, follows constitutional and legal provisions, and it clears the runway for 2027 preparations.

He also pushed back at the story making rounds that the portal was buckling under pressure. It wasn’t, he said. The system was built for this volume and it handled it.

On the disenfranchisement argument, Oketola wasn’t buying it either. The exercise had already been extended once, he pointed out, which gave interested Nigerians plenty of room. And the commission didn’t sit quiet about it — there were nationwide voter education drives and awareness campaigns.

“The states have pictorial evidence of the awareness campaigns and voter education carried out by the commission,” he added.

Ending the exercise, he said, is simply what has to happen so INEC can finish the pile of critical work waiting behind it. Leave registration open indefinitely and the whole schedule starts wobbling.

2.9 million registered in Phase III

The numbers give some idea of the scale.

INEC registered 2,970,257 eligible Nigerians in Phase III, Week Nine of the exercise — a figure covering both completed online and physical registrations as of July 17, 2026, according to data released by the commission and seen by Reportersroom.

Osun State is the exception. Registration there has been suspended ahead of the governorship election, in line with Section 9(6) of the Electoral Act 2022.

The commission was careful to label the figure preliminary. It still has to survive the claims and objections period, then the biometric system, which will strip out duplicates.

Breaking it down: 970,865 registrants, or 33.79 per cent, finished online. The other 2,000,092 — 66.21 per cent — did it the old-fashioned way, in person.

Women edged out men. 1,561,765 female registrants, 52.57 per cent of the total, against 1,409,192 males at 47.43 per cent.

Young people carried the exercise, honestly. 2,003,183 registrants — a hefty 67.43 per cent — were between 18 and 34. Those between 35 and 49 made up 645,651. The 50 to 69 bracket accounted for 294,443. And 27,680 Nigerians aged 70 and above registered, which is 0.93 per cent of the total.

By occupation, students led with 695,026 registrations (23.39 per cent), followed by business owners at 626,523, or 21.09 per cent.

Farmers and fishermen came next with 505,402 registrations, 17.01 per cent. Housewives followed closely — 480,682 of them, or 16.18 per cent.

Artisans recorded 152,184 registrations. Traders, 133,834. Civil servants, 74,507, and public servants, 47,778.

INEC also registered 32,361 persons living with disabilities.

State by state, Kano topped the chart with 234,305 registrations. Lagos followed with 140,546, then Edo with 139,313.

Delta recorded 132,330, Taraba 113,409, Ebonyi 111,344, Sokoto 109,076, Ogun 96,571, Bauchi 96,061, Jigawa 95,592 and Kaduna 92,505.

Benue posted 88,840, Oyo 88,716, Imo 88,155, Anambra 87,195, Nasarawa 86,914, Cross River 86,559 and Bayelsa 80,425.

Niger recorded 76,841, Kwara 76,084, Katsina 74,896, Gombe 74,152, Yobe 71,382, Kebbi 70,859, Kogi 69,713, Adamawa 65,505, Borno 44,866, the FCT 41,700 and Plateau 31,352.

Across the six geopolitical zones, the North-West came out strong.

ADC, LP and CSOs want more time

Not everyone thinks a deadline belongs on this.

Bolaji Abdullahi, National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress, told Reportersroom that voter registration shouldn’t be boxed into timelines at all. Nigerians, he argued, should be able to walk in and register whenever they decide they’re ready to participate.

“We have also mobilised people across the country to INEC to register, but you know it is not easy for people to abandon their daily work to go and queue for hours at INEC offices for registration. What we have done is mobilise our people at the grassroots level,” he said.

Ini Ememobong, National Publicity Secretary of the Interim National Working Committee of the Taminu Turaki-led PDP faction, made a similar case to Reportersroom. Inclusivity first, he said. Extend it.

His party has been mobilising at the grassroots, he explained, but there’s a stubborn problem underneath — people simply don’t trust the process anymore. Confidence in INEC’s ability to deliver a free and fair election has been thinning for a while now.

“Nigerians are discouraged, and this is putting them off registering. Unless INEC clearly demonstrates that it is impartial and capable of conducting credible elections, it will continue to have a negative impact on participation,” he said.

Labour Party’s National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, went after the closure from a different angle — the name itself.

“The name of the exercise is Continuous Voter Registration, and we should start with the name and allow people who have an interest in participating in the election to register.

“I don’t see how people registering even up to December can obstruct what INEC is doing, so long as those people are not going to contest elections.

“It is only in Nigeria that electoral umpires put barriers in place to keep people from participating. In most other countries, once you have a national identity, it is enough for you to vote, but here they are making it a big deal.

“I don’t know where the idea of stopping people from participating in the CVR comes from or how it will help INEC. Millions of Nigerians will turn 18 by December. Are they saying those people should not register?” Ifoh said.

Civil society picked up the same thread.

Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin, President of Women Arise for Change Initiative, told Reportersroom that with roughly six months still on the calendar before the 2027 polls, there’s room to breathe. But — and she was firm about this — any extension should come from a desire to widen participation, not because politicians shouted loud enough.

“Given that there are six clear months before the general elections, there may be a need to relax the closure of voter registration for some more weeks.

“It should not be in response to the demand of political parties but in response to the need to make our democratic process more participatory. Such an extension may be effective for new voters at INEC offices nationwide only,” Okei-Odumakin added.

Olasupo Abideen, Chairman of the BallotEyes Working Group, called the closure premature and didn’t dress it up.

“To be honest, when we say something is continuous, it should be continuous voter registration. Because the moment INEC closes the portal, especially with more than six months before the election, I think it is wrong,” he said.

November would have been a fairer cut-off, in his view. CSOs, he noted, have been consistent on this from the start.

“We want more Nigerians to decide those who govern us. We want more Nigerians to be part of the decision-making and electoral processes in Nigeria.”

He also argued that full digitalisation should make keeping the portal open easier, not harder. The old system — start online, then trek to a physical centre — put plenty of people off entirely.

Emmanuel Olowu, Executive Director of the Socio-Economic and Civic Rights Advocacy, raised the legal question nobody at the commission has fully answered.

Section 9(5) of the Electoral Act 2022 says registration should stop no later than 90 days before an election. Section 10(1) provides for Continuous Voter Registration.

“If the law allows registration to continue until no later than 90 days before the election, why has INEC ended the exercise about 180 days before polling? What legal, administrative or logistical reasons justify this early closure?” Olowu asked.

Fair question.

APC and Yiaga Africa side with INEC

The ruling party sees it differently, unsurprisingly.

APC National Vice Chairman (South-East), Dr Ijeomah Arodiogbu, told Reportersroom that INEC needs a firm deadline to plan properly — you can’t work out how many ballots to print if the voter figure keeps moving.

Still, he said the party wouldn’t fight an extension if it doesn’t wreck the commission’s timetable.

“Talking about an extension; we are willing to indulge the other political parties because they would otherwise complain that INEC is biased against them. Meanwhile, INEC gave equal time to all the political parties, and they failed to do the needful but preferred to spread false narratives to deceive the people.

“INEC also gave an extension for the upload of candidates, and we welcomed it even though we had met the initial timeframe. If it is the decision of INEC and it will not affect its programme, we have no objection,” he said.

Samson Itodo, Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, also backed the commission — carefully. INEC, he said, is operating inside the timelines the Electoral Act and its own published timetable allow.

He admitted the closure will sting for some people who didn’t make it in time. But sticking to the schedule matters.

“The commission requires sufficient time to clean the register, adjudicate claims and objections, remove duplicates, print voter registers and complete other pre-election preparations. While the closure may disappoint some prospective voters, certainty and adherence to the electoral timetable are essential for effective election planning,” he said.

If an extension is going to happen at all, Itodo added, it must not disturb the timetable or weaken the integrity of the register.

Then he made the point that probably matters most in the long run: make CVR actually continuous. Nigerians shouldn’t be scrambling months before an election. They should have chance after chance, years in advance.

As for why turnout was underwhelming this time, the Yiaga Africa boss pointed to a familiar mix — people don’t believe in elections the way they used to, awareness was patchy, logistics were a headache, and money is tight for almost everybody.

By midnight, none of that will matter. The register closes either way.