INEC says the cleanup of the voter register is finished. From Friday, anyone on the list can check it.

INEC announced on Monday that the cleanup is done. Chairman Joash Amupitan told editors in Abuja that the register is now over 103 million. The list goes on display.

Amupitan said the public can scrutinise the register from 9 to 15 October. The law behind it is Section 19(1) of the Electoral Act 2026. It sets a seven-day period, no later than 90 days before a general election. The register must be displayed at every registration area and published on INEC’s website or another site the commission sets up.

What does that look like on the ground? In Nasarawa, the register goes up in 147 wards. Voters check their names, photographs, dates of birth and polling units. In Ekiti, the commissioner listed what a claim can cover. Omissions. Errors. Underage names. Dead voters. Non-citizens. Duplicates.

The window is shorter than last time. In 2022, INEC ran the display for 14 days, seven at ward level and seven at local government offices. It also put the register online for the first time. This time the Act sets seven days.

Card collection also starts on Friday. But the chairman spoke of Phase One cards at local government centres. Phase One was the first of three registration rounds. It registered 2,611,266 people. The reports cited here give no collection date for the other two rounds, which registered 7,989,832 between them. INEC says a new printable card process is meant to make waiting months for a card a relic of the past.

The 2023 register held 93,469,008 voters. INEC now reports 10,772,421 new registrations. Add them and you reach 104,241,429. INEC says over 103 million. Its biometric system, ABIS, finds and removes duplicate records. None of the reports of Monday’s announcement cited here says how many names it removed.

INEC’s own figures also moved. On 30 July, the Guardian reported Phase One at 2,782,587 and Phase Two at 3,748,704, figures it called preliminary pending the biometric cleanup. On Monday, INEC gave 2,611,266 and 4,121,835. The published Phase One figure is now 171,321 lower. Phase Two is 373,131 higher. Phase Three held at 3,867,997.

The three Monday figures add up to 10,601,098. The total INEC states is 10,772,421, which it calls subject to final biometric verification. The gap is 171,323. None of the reports cited explains it.

What happens to a claim? INEC says claims from the display will be addressed afterwards. It says the register will be presented to political parties on 15 December. On Tuesday, INEC marked 100 days to the 2027 elections.

The announcement gave the number that went in. The reports of it don’t give the number that came out.