INEC should sustain CVR momentum

The recent report that the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will run till the 2019 general elections is a welcome development that will impact positively on the nation’s electoral system and ease the burden of keying into the process on the electorate.

Speaking at a one-day forum for election stakeholders in Minna, the INEC Secretary in Niger state, Alhaji Aliyu Bungudu, who made the disclosure, said the decision was to ensure that no eligible voter will be disenfranchised in the 2019 polls, assuring that the exercise “will continue at the local government level till few months to the conduct of the 2019 general elections”.
He added: “The exercise will scale down to registration areas/wards and polling units that recorded zero registration during the last exercise.”

Alhaji Aliyu also stated that INEC would carry out the assignment with due diligence and assured that the exercise would be conducted in public places to ease accessibility, while soliciting the support of politicians, traditional and religious leaders in mobilising Nigerians who have attained the age of 18 to register.
It would be recalled that the voter registration exercise was flagged off on April 27 nationwide. Besides those who have just attained the age of 18, the exercise also offers an opportunity for eligible Nigerians who did not register to vote in the 2015 general elections for one reason or the other and were consequently denied the right to elect leaders of their choice.

It is quite obvious that by this innovation, the electoral umpire is being proactive and working round the clock to ensure that all Nigerians of voting age are sucked into the process devoid of last-minute rush that characterised such exercise in recent years.
However, since the CVR exercise began, there have been reports about snags greeting the takeoff from different parts of the country. It is pertinent to emphasise that some eligible voters are already picking holes in the process. Complaints range from logistics to locations of the exercise. At the takeoff of the registration, INEC had announced that the local government headquarters across the country would serve as centres for the exercise. It would appear that the commission overlooked some critical areas that are central to the overall success of the process.

Take for instance the concerns of residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.  Soon after the flag-off of the exercise in FCT penultimate Thursday, the chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Abdullahi Candido, asked: “How can the teeming population of Nigerians who live far away from the headquarters of these LGs access the programme, especially in this current economic hardship being compounded by a recession?”
“AMAC does not just start and end in Zuba or A.Y.A; there are villages that are over 50km away from the city centre, hence the need for the exercise to be taken to the grassroots”, he explained.
Candido was not alone. The chairman, FCT Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Joseph Indiwa, opined that for the voter registration to be successful, there was need to take the exercise to the people in the remote villages.
Another concern which the exercise has generated is the possibility of registration by proxy. The electoral umpire must assure Nigerians that the anomaly is totally eliminated in the ongoing exercise.

Besides, another worrisome feature of the exercise is that those who have registered would collect their permanent voter cards three months after the exercise.  This is a waiting game that could engender hiccups in the process.
While commending the INEC for putting in place the CVR, it should not assume that it has close to two years to carry out the exercise. Next year and up to a few months before the 2019 elections would witness the emergence of more Nigerians that have attained voting age. There is, therefore, the need for continuous public enlightenment in order to sustain the momentum. This will ensure that the fire brigade approach which is the hallmark of the average Nigerian does not play out as the 2019 polls draw closer.

Leave a Reply