APC chieftain urges INEC to review PWD voter figures

The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader for Persons with Disabilities, Tolu Bankole, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to review the figures presented for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) on the national voters' register. In a statement released on Sunday, Bankole criticized the 137,487 PWD figure being circulated by INEC, arguing that it does not represent the total number of registered voters with disabilities in the country.

Instead, he explained that this figure primarily covers individuals who indicated their disability status after INEC introduced a dedicated disability field in its Continuous Voter Registration process in 2021. Bankole emphasized that voters with disabilities who registered before 2021 were not included in the disability-disaggregated figures, as previous registration systems did not consistently include disability status as a separate data field.

He urged INEC to provide clearer qualifications and methodological limitations for PWD statistics, intensify sensitization efforts to ensure PWDs understand the importance of accurate self-identification, and explore mechanisms to improve historical visibility of the full PWD cohort on the register.

Brief written by urgent.news from Punch Nigeria's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.