By Angel Nwadede
Asaba: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Muhammed Muatafa Lecky has revealed the important milestone in INEC’s resolve to deliver on its mandate of conducting free, fair and credible elections in 2019.
He disclosed this in Asaba, Delta state on Friday April 28, 2017 during the commencements of the continuous voter’s registration exercise, which commenced nationwide today.
The commissioner said for the commission to achieve success in future election, especially the 2019 election, there will be need for all stakeholders to ensure that eligible persons can be identified and encouraged to participate in the on going voters registration exercise.
Muhammed Muatafa said that the main objective of the event is to register new eligible voters and distribute permanent voter’s cards (PVC’s) to others who had registered before but yet to collect their PVCs
According to him the exercise will hold in all the 774 Local Government Areas of the federation and will be carried on till the conclusion of the general elections in 2019, in which the exercise will take Place on Mondays to Fridays between the hours of 9:00am to 3:00pm, excluding public holidays at various Local government offices of the commission or any other suitable location.
Muhammed Muatafa said that the registration process is on the following guidelines principles of registration not by proxy, multiple-registration is prohibited and finally registration is a condition for exercising one’s right to vote.
The registration according to him, will be done by team of four Registration Area Officers (RAOs) and a Distribution Officer (DO) will be stationed at the LGA office or any other suitable location, stressing that the team will have two Direct Data Capturing machines (DDCMs), one for data capture and the other as backup to facilitate the successful conduct of the CVR.
He advised that all eligible voters to participate effectively to avoid disenfranchisement in the forthcoming election, adding that this exercise will be all year round and the political parties should encourage their supporters to come out to register and collect their PVCs.
“When all Stakeholders are involved, those that had attain the ripe age, those are yet to collect the voters card collects them, we are on the road to achieve credible election in 2019”.
