Despite repeated assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that it is working assiduously to eliminate challenges which have affected the smooth conduct of the on-going Continuous Voter’s Registration exercise (CVR), millions of eligible voters across the country may be disfranchised over poor logistics and shortage of personnel in the various registration centres; investigation by BusinessDay has revealed.
Recall that recently, some groups staged a peaceful protest at the INEC headquarters in Abuja over the poor manner the commission was handling the on-going voter registration exercise across the country.
Findings revealed that while there was large turn- out of people for the exercise at the various registration centres across the country, they however, complained of the slow process of the exercise, charging INEC to provide more machines and personnel to improve the process.
A resident in Alimosho, Lagos, Fatimo Yusuf, who spoke to BusinessDay, urged INEC to create additional centres, deploy more personnel and machines to the registration centres, stressing that the current arrangement had discouraged several Nigerians from taking part in the registration and acquiring their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC).
“The process is slow. Personally, I have been here since 5am to register, and I am still in the queue, some people have been here for two days, they have not registered, INEC should adopt the former method it was using before, that is carrying out the registration at pooling units? Look at this centre; they are using only one machine in spite of the crowd”
A Chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos state, Wasiu Olushola, bemoaned the shady arrangement by INEC, stressing that some of the current challenges could have been avoided if INEC has conducted the exercise in pooling units.
“The method adopted by the commission is not working, several of our party members, Nigerians have not been able to register despite assurance by INEC that it was tackling the challenges, I have gone round most of the centres it is just personnel and logistics issues. I hope this is sorted out on time because election is here, we don’t really have time except we want to disenfranchise this people”.
An INEC official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in Ikeja, disclosed that the commission was redoubling it effort to register more people, while adding that more machines had been provided to some centres in the state.
“We are aware that a lot of people want to register and we are doing our best to register them. We have gotten more machines and generator to improve the process. We register about 60 to 70 people a day here, but it is not true that we ask people to come 4am and write their names. We open here at the centres by 9am and the machines would not work before then. Nigerian would always complain no matter the method that is adopted for any process”.
When contacted the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, Said that the commission had initiated several measures to improve the ongoing voter registration exercise, adding that the commission had registered over nine million voters since last year when the exercise began.
