Nigerians, who could not register in the continuous voter registration, which ended on Sunday, have expressed frustration over the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission to extend the exercise.
The stranded applicants in interviews with The PUNCH thumbed down the decision of the commission to stop the CVR, describing it as a way to disenfranchise them.
In preparation for the 2023 general elections, INEC began the nationwide registration in June 2021 to enable Nigerians who had just attained the voting age and others to register.
The electoral body planned to terminate the CVR on June 30,2022, but a civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project on June 5 filed a suit at the Federal High Court seeking an extension of the exercise beyond that date.
Consequently, Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon on June 20 granted an order of interim injunction stopping INEC from stopping the registration exercise.
In compliance with the order, the electoral body extended the exercise till July 31.
Despite the extension, however, hundreds of applicants have continued to besiege registration centres nationwide in a bid to register before the deadline.
But findings by The PUNCH indicated that thousands of Nigerians in Niger, Kano, Lagos, Katsina, Benue, Ogun and Enugu as well as the Federal Capital Territory could not participate in the exercise before it ended on Sunday.
In Niger State, hundreds of people were seen milling about at the INEC registration centre near the Eastern byepass, Minna, waiting to be attended to by officials. Some of them complained that they had been at the centre since 5am.
An applicant, Ibrahim Musa said, “Some of us have been here since 5am and they (officials) have been keeping us since then. They said they are working with numbers but we wrote our names on a list and no one is using the list. They said they will no longer go by the list but people with cars are coming and driving in and getting registered while we are left here outside the gate.”
At 5.07pm on Sunday, over a hundred persons were seen at the state INEC headquarters on David Mark road, waiting to be registered.
They told our correspondent in Niger that the INEC staff said they had ended the exercise.
Omotola Ayeni said, “They refused to register us; they said they had closed and we have been here since 6am.’’
A Minna resident, Sarah Samson said she had been visiting the registration centre for about two days and still was not registered.
She accused the electoral officials of unethical conduct, saying, ‘’There are so many irregularities; ‘man know man’ (nepotism) is being practiced here.“
Kano residents
In Kano, over 100 prospective applicants were seen struggling to register at the INEC sub-centre located behind Nomansland Police Station.
Narrating his ordeal on Sunday, Kevin Nnadi, said he and others had been at the centre for over 15 hours.
“What I observed here is that it depends on who you know and sorting (bribing) somebody. I’ve been here for 15 hours, while some others have been here for three days.”
When asked how the INEC officials have been treating them, he said, ‘’They intermittently come out outside the gate where we have been waiting all day long and call one or two names. Also, from nowhere, they will call names and somebody would just be admitted into the premises while ignoring others who have been waiting for hours.”.
Our correspondent who monitored the exercise in Enugu observed that over 200 individuals could not be registered at the Okpara Square centre on Sunday.
They appealed for extension of time to enable eligible Nigerians to register for the permanent voter cards.
An applicant, Emeka Okongwu stated, “I have been coming to register for four times but could not register because of the crowd. I don’t know why INEC did not provide machines for the exercise, especially here in the South East.
“In the North the machines were provided but here the commission provided few machines and manpower. If I don’t register by the end of today and the exercise is not extended, I may go to court to seek redress.”
An INEC worker who spoke on condition of anonymity said there was no way they could register all the people who turned out for the exercise.
He noted, ‘’We requested for more machines for registration but only four machines were provided. For more than two months, there is not a single day we finished registering people that turned out to register. We always have left-over. We register about 1,000 people every day with the four machines. It is not within our powers to extend the registration.’’
The situation was not different in Plateau State where scores of Nigerians complained about their frustration with the exercise.
A resident, Hannah Gyang, who was in the queue, said she would not return home unless she completed her registration.
When The PUNCH visited the Plateau state headquarters of INEC along Miango Road in Jos on Sunday around 6:10 pm, many of the prospective voters were seen struggling to register while officials of the commission were also attending to them.
But an official deflected the blame for the slow process, saying the applicants only turned up when the exercise was about winding down.
The Head of Communication Unit of INEC in the state, Cornelius John, assured the people that the officials would attend to everyone before the exercise eventually closed.
Punch
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