Friday Olokor, Victor Ayeni, Ada Wodu and Olaide Oyelude
29 June 2021
Kindly share this story:
The Independent National Electoral Commission on Monday resumed its Continuous Voter Registration ahead of the 2023 general elections with a promise to review the exercise.
INEC National Commissioner and chairman (Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, stated this in an interview with THE PUNCH on Monday night.
He said, “We are confident and hopeful that Nigerians will embrace this online registration. We are also confident that it will ease the way of doing business, especially at the registration centre.
“The portals just went up today and we have very experienced engineers; although this is a new and creative innovation, we have the capacity to take care of challenges.
“You know this registration is going to take place in two phases, there is the online registration and the physical registration at the registration centres. The physical registration will start on July 19. Those who registered through the process will be given appointment beginning from July 19.
“Then, they can go to either the INEC state offices or the local government office to complete their registration. Those who are not up using the portal will also begin on July 19 for physical registration; and this physical registration will take place on July 19 only in 37 INEC State offices and 774 LG offices.
“After some time, we will evaluate our performance, evaluate our security situation and then make a determination whether to deploy fully to the other registration centres that we have created.”
INEC had accredited 31 organisations to observe the CVR, while 20 more applications were being processed.
Meanwhile in Katsina State, many residents of Katsina state and operators of cybercafé claimed ignorance of the exercise.
It was also observed that many electorate who could have done the registration on their smart phones equally claimed ignorance of the exercise.
At the INEC state headquarters along Katsina-Daura road, some of the commission staff members were seen enlightening the electorate on how they can carry out the registration on their smart phones.
The INEC Public Affairs Officer for the state, Ibrahim Abashe, said, “The online CVR exercise is something you can do on your smart phone.’’
However in Lagos, the state INEC spokesperson, Mr Femi Akinbiyi, said, “For now, individuals are filling the form online. Then on the 19th you still go to INEC office or at the local government to complete your registration.”
The All Progressive Congress Lagos chapter Spokesperson, Mr Seye Oladejo, said, “The exercise is a step in the right direction. INEC has started to make use of online facilities to make it convenient for central voters to register. That is commendable.”
The Peoples Democratic Party Lagos chapter spokesperson, Mr Ganiyu Taofeek said, “It is a welcome development, as long as no one or party is disenfranchised in the election.”
In Cross River State, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Emmanuel Hart, in a statement warned “all those that may want to hack or undermine the system that the nation’s Cybercrime Act 2015 will be used to prosecute them.”
