The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)) in Sokoto State, has urged residents of the state to support the commission to ensure the success of the ongoing Continuous Voters’ Registration (CVR) exercise.
Malam Sadiq Abubakar, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), who told newsmen in Sokoto on Wednesday that the exercise is taking place across the 23 local government areas of the state, said the turn-out of people willing to register is highly appreciable.
According to him, people need to report any issue concerning the CVR exercise that will aid INEC in updating it’s data, such as cases of dead persons’ names in the INEC register which needed to be removed.
“People should understand that INEC cannot know all the people in their community who are late, we only identify prominent personalities and delist them from our register.
“But when people report the death of any person in the community, we take that as a support towards ensuring that our data is up to date and will ease the process for INEC,” Abubakar said.
The REC noted that the online CVR exercise would reduce the work of INEC by 40 to 50 per cent, as people will only go to their registration centres to update the online registration and get captured.
“As at July 22, we have 2,453 people who have successfully registered online out of the 1.6 million that registered across the country.
However, our target is to ensure that all eligible citizens are registered during the current exercise.
“Moreover, this exercise is to address all cases which include, new registration, change of residence, change of name, age correction or any other issue that required INEC attention,” he added.
On Card Reader, Abubakar said that the machine has solved serious electoral problems not only in Nigeria but in many African countries.
“The basic problem is that people have never cautioned those people who do not want Card Reader to be used in the country, but INEC.
“People should also caution the politicians and those who are the beneficiaries of the Card Reader.
“INEC’s benefit of the Card Reader is that it is serving the commission in ensuring credible election, as such, allow nobody to rig elections and cannot be bypassed to cast non-eligible votes.
“Moreover, the benefit of the Card Reader goes directly to the politicians in the election, yet they are the ones who always sabotage the use of the machine by INEC,” he said.
He added that the use of the Card Reader in Nigeria has come to stay. (NAN)
