The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has insisted that the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise will end today (Sunday), despite growing calls by opposition political parties and civil society organisations for an extension to enable more eligible Nigerians register ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The commission maintained that there would be no further extension of the exercise, stressing that it must proceed with the cleaning and verification of voter data, publication of the provisional register for claims and objections, and other statutory activities required before the elections.

INEC National Commissioner, Mohammed Haruna, said the registration exercise would officially close at midnight on Sunday, explaining that extending the exercise further would disrupt the commission's preparations for the polls.

He said the commission's Information Technology Department and Voter Registration Department would immediately commence processing the data collected, while the Automated Biometric Identification System would be deployed to identify and remove multiple registrations before the provisional voters' register is published for public scrutiny.

Haruna noted that the final number of newly registered voters would only be determined after biometric verification and the claims and objections process, after which the validated figure would be added to the existing national register of about 93 million voters.

Also defending the commission's position, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Dayo Oketola, said the decision was in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act and necessary to allow the commission complete critical pre-election activities.

He added that the commission had carried out extensive nationwide voter education campaigns and had already extended the exercise to accommodate more eligible Nigerians.

According to the latest figures released by INEC, a total of 2,970,257 Nigerians had successfully completed registration as of July 17, 2026.

Of the figure, 970,865 completed the process online, while 2,000,092 registered physically at designated centres nationwide.

Female registrants accounted for 1,561,765, representing 52.57 per cent of the total, while 1,409,192 were male.

The commission's data also showed that young Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 34 constituted the majority of new registrants with 2,003,183 registrations.

Students emerged as the largest occupational group, while Kano recorded the highest number of registrations with 234,305, followed by Lagos, Edo, Delta and Taraba.

Ogun State recorded 96,571 new registrations.

The commission, however, said the figures remain provisional and would be subjected to biometric verification and data cleaning before the final voters' register is produced.

The decision to end the exercise has drawn criticism from opposition parties, including the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Labour Party (LP) and a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), all of which argued that voter registration should remain continuous to allow more eligible Nigerians to participate in the 2027 elections.

The parties maintained that many prospective voters, particularly those who would attain the age of 18 before the elections, risk being excluded if the registration window closes now.

Several civil society organisations also faulted the decision, describing the closure as premature.

They argued that with about six months before the general elections, INEC could still extend the exercise without affecting its preparations.

They noted that the Electoral Act permits voter registration to continue until 90 days before an election.

However, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and election monitoring group Yiaga Africa backed the commission's decision, saying INEC requires adequate time to clean the voters' register, resolve claims and objections, eliminate duplicate registrations and complete other statutory processes necessary for credible elections.