INEC Kick-starts Nationwide Voters Registration June 28 |The Source

By Ayodele Oni

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it will commence a nationwide continuous voters registration on June 28 across the 774 local government areas of the federation.

Its Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, made the announcement, at a media briefing on Thursday in Abuja.

He said the registration exercise would be carried out continuously for over a year until the third quarter of 2022.

The commission, had earlier in the year, announced that the exercise would commence in the first quarter of 2021.

He stated that the Commission is now in a position to embark on recommencement of the CVR exercise on Monday 28th June 2021.

According to the INEC boss, “there are three cardinal reasons why the exercise could not start earlier.The first is the establishment of new systems that would ensure safer CVR exercise in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In this regard, the Commission is building a new online registration portal that would enable new registrants to commence registration online and subsequently complete the capture of their biometric data at designated registration centres.

“This is designed to reduce crowding.Through the online portal, they can schedule their visits to the registration centres to suit their convenience.

“Above all, a CVR Locator is integrated into the new portal which will enable online registrants to locate the nearest registration centre available to them to complete their registration.

“Previously, registered voters who wished to transfer their voting locations, apply for replacement of their PVCs or correct their personal information had to appear physically at the registration centres.

“The development of this portal, which is being done in-house by our engineers, has taken a little more time to complete than the Commission anticipated.

“The second reason is the Commission’s determination to expand voter access to Polling Units. You would all recall that recently the Commission embarked on a nation wide engagement with Nigerians in which we raised the fundamental issue of declining voter access to Polling Units across the country.

“The engagement clearly demonstrated that the existing Polling Units are inadequate. They were initially designed to cater for a projected 50 million voters but presently serve over 84 million voters.

“In addition, many of the Polling Units are inaccessible to voters, especially Persons With Disability (PWDs), and are not conducive to implementing the Commission’s election regulations, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are glad that most Nigerians agree with the Commission on this issue, and we

have commenced a far-reaching programme of converting Voting Points and Voting Point Settlements into full-fledged Polling Units and relocating poorly situated Polling Units to better locations.

“The Commission needs more time to complete this exercise, so that the new Polling Units will be available for registrants to choose during the CVR exercise.

“Thirdly, the Commission has decided to introduce a new voter registration equipment and technology. The present generation of voter registration equipment, which the Commission introduced in 2011, is the Direct Data Capture Machine (DDCM).

“While the DDCMs have served the Commission well over the last 10 years, we believe that there are now more compact registration devices that will better serve Nigerians during the CVR exercise.”