APC chieftain urges INEC to review PWD voter figures

Tolu Bankole, the All Progressives Congress National Leader for Persons with Disabilities, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to revise the figures they use to represent the number of voters with disabilities on the national register. In a statement released in Abuja on Sunday, Bankole argued that the 137,487 figure being used by INEC does not accurately reflect the total number of registered voters with disabilities in Nigeria.

This figure only represents those who indicated their disability status after INEC began including a dedicated disability field in its Continuous Voter Registration process in 2021. Prior to this change, voters with disabilities who registered earlier were not included in the disability-disaggregated data because the previous systems did not consistently ask about disability status.

Bankole's concerns highlight a significant gap in the data, which he claims could still be an undercount even for registrations conducted since 2021. This is because some Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) did not indicate their status during registration. The reasons cited for this lack of self-identification include poor awareness, stigma, and the perception that declaring a disability is unnecessary.

To address this issue, Bankole urged INEC to clearly qualify the PWD statistics with information about the time period and the methods used to collect the data. He also called for intensified sensitization efforts to ensure that eligible PWDs understand the importance of accurately indicating their disability status during registration. Additionally, Bankole suggested that INEC explore, within legal and privacy constraints, methods to improve the historical visibility of PWDs already registered in the voters' register.