The Executive Director of the Center for Responsive Governance, Ayodeji Ologun, has said the Independent National Electoral Commission's approach to Continuous Voter Registration is illegal, arguing that the exercise cannot be described as continuous when it has a closing date.

Ologun stated this while reviewing the just-concluded Continuous Voter Registration exercise, shortly after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) brought the nationwide exercise to a close on Sunday.

Speaking on Monday during an interview on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu, Ogun State, Ologun called for a complete overhaul of Nigeria's voter registration system, insisting that voter registration should be available throughout the year without opening or closing dates, allowing Nigerians who attain voting age to register immediately.

"It is illegal. It is unfair that you call something continuous voter's registration and then you put a peg on it, you say it has closed. What does that justify the grammatical use of the word continuous."

Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had earlier extended the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise by two weeks, moving the final deadline from July 10, 2026, to Sunday, July 26, 2026. The initial extension was granted to accommodate a massive surge of last-minute applicants and to appease civil society groups demanding more time for citizens to register ahead of the 2027 general elections. However, following the expiration of this grace period, INEC officially closed the registration portal and physical collection centres nationwide, firmly ruling out any subsequent extensions. 

The electoral umpire justified the final closure by citing Section 17 of the Electoral Act 2022, which mandates the suspension of registration at least 90 days before a general election. INEC further emphasized that the hard cutoff is operationally necessary to clean the voter database, eliminate double registrations, and allow sufficient time for the printing and distribution of physical Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) before the country goes to the polls in early 2027.

However, Ologun argued that Nigeria's voter registration process remains outdated, saying a genuinely continuous voter registration exercise should not have a fixed closing date. According to him, INEC imposes a deadline because the officials responsible for voter registration are the same personnel the commission deploys to conduct elections.

“We are living archaic life in Nigeria, Voter’s registration should not have a opening day or a closing day. The reason why they tell you it is continuous and then they tell you it is closing on one particular day is because the same people who are responsible for that registration across all the wards and the local government are the same people that INEC wants to use for election” he added. 

The governance advocate argued that the recently concluded registration exercise, despite lasting almost a year and becoming the longest voter registration period since the return to democracy in 1999, failed to address voter apathy.

“It is very important to note that the continuous voter registration that ended yesterday, July 26th, as we witnessed two extensions, and that made it the longest that we've had in our democratic dispensation since 1999 till now. That lasted almost a year, from August 2025 till about August 2026…Well, the question would be, was it able to achieve the needed intention? The answer would be a capital no.” he said. 

According to him, repeated extensions of the exercise reflected the reluctance of many Nigerians to register.

“Nigerians are reluctant. Nigerians are showing a willingness to come out to register and this further proves the call or the claim by a lot of people, as civil society organizations and political watchers, that there seems to be rising apathy in voters' participation in the electoral process. And in a process where voters are having apathy, where voters are showing unwillingness to participate in the process, it's certain it will end up making the worst of us rule the rest of us, because only a minority will determine who leads the nation” 

Ologun further proposed a fully digital registration process where eligible citizens can register online, indicate their preferred collection centres or even receive their Permanent Voter Cards at their residences.

“Voter's registration should be something that you can do in the comfort of your home, just like the new international passport has become. Once you've clocked the age of 18, you should be able to log into the INEC website, upload your data, get registered, and on your portal, you will indicate where you want to pick up your permanent voter's card and when the card is ready, it is sent to that place, then you pick it up, or even the permanent voter's card is delivered to your doorstep, just like it has become possible with the international passport” he explained.  

Ologun also advocated greater integration of national databases, saying information already captured through the National Identity Management Commission should be sufficient for voter registration and other government services.

“I think one of the reasons why we are unifying our data, which the NIMC is doing, through the Ministry of Interior, is that one data should be sufficed for all”

He also stressed that the real measure of electoral success should not be the number of registered voters but the number of citizens who actually vote on election day.

Using Osun State as an example, Ologun noted that after weeks of complaints and protests over delayed PVC distribution, gunmen allegedly invaded a collection centre in a Local Government Area soon after the exercise commenced.

" Take what happened in Osun State as an example. Before now, many residents had complained about delays in the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). There were repeated appeals and protests urging INEC to speed up the process. However, shortly after the distribution exercise began, gunmen reportedly attacked a collection centre in Oru Local Government Area and made away with PVCs that were yet to be collected by their rightful owners."

Ologun identified several factors discouraging participation, including uncollected Permanent Voter Cards, insecurity, population mobility and the difficulties faced by students who register while in higher institutions but are unable to collect their PVCs or vote after graduation or school closures.

“So the question is, what happens to those individuals?  INEC cannot reproduce voters ID cards between now and August 15th, now what process would INEC take in ensuring that those voters cards that were cut away will be invalid during the election” 

Addressing voter’s participation and the effectiveness of Nigeria's electoral process, he argued that the success of voter registration should be measured by actual turnout on election day rather than the number of people who register. He expressed concern over what he described as low registration and voter participation, citing figures from previous elections to illustrate the challenges facing the country's democracy.

He said: “Look, we have over 80 million qualified voters in Nigeria that are eligible to vote. The total number of registrations in Nigeria presently is less than 45 million. That tells you that more than half of qualified voters are unregistered”

Ologun further observed that voter apathy remains a major challenge, noting that even among those who register, fewer than half eventually turn out to vote on election day. 

Of the half that eventually registers, less than half comes out on the day of election to vote. The question is, what happens to the other half who fail to come out on the day of election?,” he added.