Three days to the end of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), a massive turnout was recorded Friday in Kuje area council of federal Capital territory (FCT).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the exercise, which was generally peaceful, orderly and hitch-free at the Kuje INEC office and some registration centres, was crowded a few days to the deadline.
The registrants included people who wanted to register for new Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), people whose cards had been defaced and those that wanted to transfer to another polling unit.
However, the Kuje INEC Electoral Officer (EO), Mr. Yakubu Allawa, said the office had only four functional machines for the entire area council, thereby making the exercise cumbersome.
Allawa said another major challenge the Commission was facing was the issue of poor network, which had been slowing down the process during capturing.
According to him, decentralisation of the registration centre has helped in speeding up the exercise and in extension decongested population at the office.
He said adequate priority was being given to Persons with Disability (PWDs), the elderly and pregnant women in the area.
“We have been asking people to come out and register for a long time, this mentality of coming out at the last minute has to be discouraged.
“For a long time people refused to come out to register and now that the closure for the exercise is drawing nearer, people are trooping out in large numbers,” he said.
However, the electoral officer called on all major stakeholders, especially traditional rulers and political party stalwarts, to collaborate to make the registration easy before the deadline.
He said the Commission was ready to make the exercise seamless if stakeholders would cooperate and assist in organising registrants at their various units for easy registration.
Earlier, before the decentralisation of the registration, some registrants described the exercise as tedious and cumbersome, marred by delay in capturing, slow process and other technical hitches.
They, therefore, appealed for deployment of more machines to different electoral wards in Kuje to fast track their registration before the deadline.
The Commission had fixed July 31, as the deadline for the exercise across the country.
