In 1999, Nigeria’s population was estimated to be 115,766,000. By the time the country voted in 2019, it had risen to 199,039,000, a growth of 83,273,000 or 71%. When INEC announced the number of voters on the register for the 2023 election on 11 January 2022, the population of Nigeria was estimated to be over 219,864,000. In other words, since 1999, Nigeria’s population has grown by over 104,098,000, or 89.92%.
By contrast, in 1999, Nigeria had 57 million registered voters. This rose by 5.26% or three million to 60 million in 2003 and then by 1.67% or one million to 61 million in 2007. By 2011, the number of registered voters had climbed by over 12 million to 73.53 million or 20.5%, representing an average yearly growth rate of nearly 5.12%, where previously it had grown by 1.31% in 1999 to 2003 and 0.42% between 2003 and 2007. By 2015, the population of registered voters had fallen to 68.83 million, a deficit of 4.7 million voters or 6.83%, representing an annualised rate of reversal of 1.71%. Yet, over the same period, Nigeria, a country with a median age of just under 18 years, had grown in population from an estimated 162.9 million to 181.2 million, an increase of 15.174 million or 11.23%, representing an annual growth rate of 2.8%.
These numbers and the patterns they reveal do not lend themselves to easy explanation. However, as the Justice Uwais presidential committee on electoral reform pointed out in its 2008 report, much of what passed for electoral numbers in Nigeria before 2011 was voodoo. Just to illustrate this point, the INEC does not have a breakdown of official results for the 2007 presidential elections but there are turnout figures for that election.
In 20 years from 1999 to 2019, Nigeria’s population rose by 71% but the population of voters rose by only 50%. With the latest numbers announced by INEC, Nigeria’s register of voters has grown by 36,522,272 since 1999 or 64.07%, a deficit of 25.83% when compared with the increase in Nigeria’s population over the same period. It is possible to speculate about what may explain this significant deficit in growth patterns between the general population and register of voters. Rational factors such as internal migration; agency dysfunctions in INEC, civic inertia or failure to register, or high transaction costs may explain some of this. But there remain worrying patterns that are not easily accounted for by these factors.
This leads to a second issue: Nigeria’s register of voters has always had invalid voters. The current register of voters in Nigeria dates back to November 2010 when the Attahiru Jega-led INEC set about establishing a credible register of voters for the country. The Commission had limited time to authenticate the raw data before the 2011 general election. When the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) finished its work on the 2011 register nearly four years later, INEC invalidated 4.7 million entries, which reduced the number of registered voters from 73.53% in 2011 to 68.83% in 2015 but not before these invalid 4.7 million were eligible to vote in 2011.
Over three election cycles since 2011, the number liable to be expunged from Nigeria’s electoral roll could be somewhere in the region of about 20 million. Separately, at the end of 2021, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reported that Nigeria had at least 3.2 million people in internal displacement. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees added that there are at least another 343,000 Nigerian refugees outside the country.
Perhaps the biggest worry of all is with dead voters. At the beginning of 2022, the INEC explained that it cannot expunge dead voters from the register because “the country does not have reliable data of births and deaths and the commission cannot engage in arbitrary removal of the names of individuals it suspects are deceased.”
The third issue, therefore, is evidently that the number of voters on the register is grossly over-stated. In the explanation of the INEC, Nigeria’s register of voters is the classic Hotel California: it is “programmed to receive” and, for anyone with their name on it, the message is that “you can check out any time you like but you can never leave.” The implications of this for electoral integrity are staggering.
Nigerian law only allows adults to vote. Over the decade between 2010 to 2020, Nigeria’s adult mortality rate has ranged between 389.09 and 357.9 per 1,000 for men; and 359.8 to 318 per 1,000 for women. In 2020, adult mortality rate in Nigeria was estimated at 34.25 per 100 of population yearly. Applied to the 2019 register and adjusted down to account for the fact that adult mortality rate is counted from 16 years, two years less than the voting age, the number liable to be removed from the electoral roll would be well over six million in any election cycle.
Over three election cycles since 2011, the number liable to be expunged from Nigeria’s electoral roll could be somewhere in the region of about 20 million. Separately, at the end of 2021, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reported that Nigeria had at least 3.2 million people in internal displacement. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees added that there are at least another 343,000 Nigerian refugees outside the country. Admittedly not all of these are adults of voting age.
However, when you look at the numbers on Nigeria’s register of voters and account for the fact that the baseline data goes back to 2011, there is a high likelihood that up to about 25% of the register are dead, dud, or displaced. When folks complain about “voter apathy” they miss one important point: Nigeria guarantees the dead a right to vote. That is antecedent to any talk of “voter apathy”.
Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a lawyer and teacher, can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu.