{"id":76809,"date":"2025-10-16T21:17:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=76809"},"modified":"2025-10-16T21:17:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:17:47","slug":"inec-defends-%e2%82%a61-5bn-charge-for-voters-register-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/10\/16\/inec-defends-%e2%82%a61-5bn-charge-for-voters-register-access\/","title":{"rendered":"INEC Defends \u20a61.5bn Charge for Voters\u2019 Register Access"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has defended the \u20a61.5 billion fee charged for releasing certified copies of the National Register of Voters and polling unit details nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>A law firm, V.C. Ottaokpukpu &amp; Associates, had requested the documents, prompting INEC\u2019s approval with a bill of \u20a61,505,901,750, a move that sparked public criticism.<\/p>\n<p>INEC\u2019s Director of Voter Education, Victoria Eta-Messi, said the fee was set under the Freedom of Information Act 2011, which allows agencies to charge for the cost of duplication and certification.<\/p>\n<p>She explained that the amount was based on \u20a6250 per page for Certified True Copies, covering over 6 million pages of voter data and polling unit lists.<\/p>\n<p>INEC stressed that the charge reflects actual production costs and reaffirmed its commitment to transparency and legal compliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola &nbsp; The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has defended the \u20a61.5 billion fee charged for releasing certified copies of the National Register of Voters and polling unit details nationwide. A law firm, V.C. Ottaokpukpu &amp; Associates, had requested the documents, prompting INEC\u2019s approval with a bill of \u20a61,505,901,750, a move that sparked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":76810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inec","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76811,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76809\/revisions\/76811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}