25th January, 2011
Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, South West Nigeria, says the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is a big disappointment to Nigeria as the commission did not prepare adequately for the ongoing voter registration exercise.
Fashola spoke when thousands of civil society groups protested the shoddy and slow pace of the exercise yesterday, saying that it was glaring that INEC was ill-prepared for the exercise as reports about the first week of the exercise have shown.
“I have taken my time in the last one week to move round the state to monitor the exercise; thankfully, Nigerians are prepared to participate, but unfortunately, INEC is not, they are not prepared adequately. In some areas, people are yet to see the machines, while some only just got the machines yesterday.
“In some cases, there were complaints of broken down machines, no print out, incomplete capturing of the ten finger prints, duplicate of the cards were issued, and I ask, who is receiving the original cards? INEC must come out and clarify these grey areas,†he said.
The governor appealed to Lagosians to be patient and resilient, saying that the present hiccups should not discourage them from ensuring they register to vote.
“Whatever it takes to register now, we must sacrifice; we must get it right otherwise we will be compelled to repeat this exercise. Having started, we must get it right. We must be ready to be patient for a few weeks because we do not want to suffer for four years,†Fashola stated.
On Monday at the Governor’s Office, thousands of protesters stormed the seat of power to protest hiccups and irregularities in the registration exercise and called on INEC to extend the exercise by three weeks to allow everybody to register.
National Coordinator of the Coalition for Democratic Reform, CODER, Chief Ayo Opadokun presented a letter to the Governor addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan and titled: Nine Days After: Nigerians Totally Reject the Poor On-going Voters Registration Exercise.
The protesters, under the aegis of Coalition for a Better Nigeria said “we are so much concerned about the irregularities in our electoral process, seemingly inordinate level of corruption, alarming unemployment rate, infrastructure decay and other aspects of bad governance in our nation.
“After more than a week into the ongoing voters’ registration exercise, many lapses were being reported in terms of shortage of the DDC machines, sudden failure of its batteries, missing of DDC machines, importation of non-residents to the registration centres, among others.â€
The letter, signed by Awa Bamiji, Opadokun and Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin said the electoral commission had started laying what it described a solid foundation “for one man many votes; thus inviting the late Michael Jackson to resurrect and vote in Nigeria again as former INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu did in the 2007 general elections.â€
The coalition sought the whole review and extension of the registration exercise “with a view to making it better. Or we will quickly switch over to a better, easier and more economical Option A4 before it is too late. This is too much with many troubles.â€
—Kazeem Ugbodaga
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