Responding, the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu who asserted the Commission’s commitment to inclusivity to every citizen as demonstrated in Osun Governorship election with persons with disability as adhoc staff, said the voting right will be extended to inmates during elections.
According to INEC Chairman, the demand to extend voting right to inmates of the correctional service is agreeable in principle as it has been extended to inmates in South Africa and Kenya.
Professor Yakubu called for transparency of the process of including inmates to participate in the general elections and gave the service some critical guidelines and legal framework section 12, subsection one of the Electoral Act 2022 that listed five qualifications for registration of voters in Nigerian to be worked on.
Recall that the Senator representing Benue North Senatorial District, Abba Moro had raised a motion in the National Assembly to extend voting right to inmates awaiting trials.
The motion was entitled, “The prerogative of Prison Inmates to vote in general elections in Nigeria: statutory, Inalienable and non-negotiable.”
Senator Abba Moro, in his presentation, said, “The Senate Notes that certain human rights are inalienable and come naturally with the birth of the individual. One of such rights is that of citizenship. Incarceration though is one of the legal grounds of depriving a person or an offender in custody of certain rights, the right of citizenship cannot at any point be taken away”,