Janet Samuel
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced a strong turnout in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, revealing that young Nigerians and women make up the majority of new registrants as over 4.4 million citizens pre-registered online in the first month of the exercise.
In a statement issued on Monday, the National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr. Sam Olumekun confirmed that online voter pre-registration in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) ended on 15th September 2025, ahead of the 2026 Area Council elections.
While the online phase has closed in the FCT, Olumekun explained that physical or in-person registration will continue at designated venues for the next two weeks before being devolved to all 62 wards of the territory between 29th September and 8th October 2025. The Commission has published detailed addresses of the centres on its official platforms.
INEC disclosed that since the commencement of the CVR on 18th August 2025, a total of 4,445,505 Nigerians have completed online pre-registration. Of this figure, women slightly outnumber men with 2,304,211 (51.83%) compared to 2,141,294 men (48.17%). Youths aged 18 to 34 dominate the statistics with 2,924,643 (65.79%) while students constitute 1,112,344 (25.02%).
The Commission also noted that as of 12th September 2025, the combined total of completed online pre-registrations and physical, in-person registrations stood at 509,929. From this figure, women again lead with 280,171 (54.94%) compared to 229,758 men (45.06%). Young Nigerians between 18 and 34 years account for 378,132 (74.15%) of the completed registrations, while students make up 196,529 (38.54%).
INEC further announced that the detailed breakdown of the registration exercise by state, gender, age, occupation, and disability has been published on its website and other official channels for public access.
