February 14, 2018

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Lagos State says it now captures about 2, 500 registrants daily in its Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) with the deployment of new Direct Data Capturing (DDC) Machines.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the commission on Sunday took delivery of 30 new DDC machines and deployed them strategically to some CVR centres to ease pressure.

Mr Sam Olumekun, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in Lagos, said at a news conference on Wednesday that the new machines would reduce complaints of delay in the registration exercise.

According to him, the new machines work faster and capture registrants in few minutes.

“The new machines that we have can handle many registrants on daily basis. It takes just less than two minutes to register one person.

“These new DDC machines have been strategically located at places where the pressure is highest,” he said.

Olumekun pleaded with the people of Lagos to bear with the commission and appreciate its efforts to ensure success of the CVR.

“We must be honest enough to admit that we have had challenges with our DDC machines, however, after we explained the challenges to the commission, new machines have been provided for us in Lagos.

“To this end, 30 new machines have been deployed in Lagos State and within the last two days when these new machines arrived, we have been capturing averagely about 2,500 every day.

“This is a great improvement from the entire number of registrants that we have had in the last couple of months.

“I want to assure the people of Lagos State that we are not resting on our oars to ensure everybody is captured. We implore eligible voters to come up and register.

“Let me assure Lagosians that INEC will not compromise or fail in its duties to conduct a free, credible and acceptable election in 2019. We ask for stakeholders’ cooperation,” the INEC boss said.

He said that the commission, as at Tuesday, had registered 231, 435 eligible voters in the state since the inception of the exercise on April 27, 2017.

Olumekun urged more residents to use the ongoing window to get registered.

He said that the commission had also been embarking on the rotation of the CVR centres around wards in each of the 20 local government areas of the state to bring the exercise closer to the people.

On the challenges facing the ongoing CVR exercise, Olumekun said that the commission had been confronting them in order to achieve success.

According to him, some of the challenges include extortion, Direct Data Capturing (DDC) machines and multiple registration, among others.

“We have reports of people asking for gratification before they are registered. We will not condone this, and anybody who demands money should be reported to INEC.

“People should please kindly report to us any bad egg that demands gratification and we will deal with such accordingly. Nobody is supposed to pay any dime for this exercise,” he said.

On multiple registration, the REC urged people to desist from the act, advising them to always check their status before going for fresh registration.

According to him, registrants in 2011 and 2015 can check their status through phone SMS by just typing and sending their state, surname and the last five digits of their VIN to 20120.

He said that the process was also applicable to those captured in the first and second quarter of the ongoing CVR in 2017.

Olumekun urged others to exercise patience for their data to be uploaded on INEC database.

The INEC boss said the commission had close to 100 DDC machines deployed to the 55 CVR centres

Olumekun said the commission would deepen its awareness and engagement with stakeholders to increase people’s participation in elections.

“Voters education is not only an exercise for INEC. It is an exercise that everyone must collaborate to achieve. Voters’ apathy nowadays is a huge concern,” he said.

On the poor attitude of some INEC staff in the ongoing CVR, Olumekun said: “This is a source of worry to us, but in a couple of weeks, we will get a brand new attitude to work”.

He also spoke on underage registration, noting that each registrant had a duty to declare his age at the point of registration.

Olumekun said where the commission has reason to doubt the age of any registrant, it reserves the right not to register such a person.

NAN reports that INEC started the nationwide Continuous Voter Registration on April 27, 2017, to capture those who had attained 18 years of age after the last exercise, and others who did not register then.

It is also for those seeking replacement of their cards or transfer, among others.

The exercise in Lagos State was limited to INEC offices in the 20 local governments before the commission increased the centres to 55 in response to the request of stakeholders for decentralisation.