18th January, 2011
As the voters registration exercise took off in Niger State, Central Nigeria, at the weekend, the major problem confronting people was the inability of  National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, members who work with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as ad-hoc registration officers, to operate the Direct Data Capture, DDC, machines.
The INEC introduced DDC machines to ease the registration of voters for the forthcoming elections.
When P.M.NEWS visited some registration centres in Minna, Niger State capital and the outskirts of the state, many people expressed disappointment that the corp members could not operate the machines.
One of them said: “It takes them 30 to 40 minutes to register one person, whereas we have over a hundred people waiting to be registered in this centre.â€
An official of INEC in the state said some corps members who trained on the use of the DDC machines were replaced by other people.
One of the corps members told P.M.NEWS that new hands were brought in because they wanted to get the allowances that would be given to those that took part in the registration exercise.
Meanwhile, the registration could not commence in Niger State on Saturday because the DDC machines arrived the state capital late for distribution to the 25 local government areas of the state.
The distribution of the materials suffered a serious setback in Bosso and Chanchanga Local Government areas, where corps members locked up INEC officials for non-payment of their allowances.
“We will not release them until they pay us or we will sell the generators they gave us,†one of the aggrieved members said.
When contacted, officials of INEC confirmed the crisis in the two councils but refused to give details.
— Aliyu Musa/Minna
