By Ukandi Odey
Jos
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was held by the neck at a multi-stakeholders forum preceding commencement of continuous voter registration exercise as stakeholders picked several holes in the arrangements and scheme of the exercise.
Although in his welcome address, the state administrative secretary of INEC, Abdulrahman A. Adamu, assured stakeholders that the engagement was “among a series of similar engagements between INEC and critical stakeholders in the electoral process as we conclude arrangements to flag off the continuous voter registration exercise.”
State chairman of the PDP, Damishi Sango, noted that “in as much as the exercise is laudable and timely, there is a serious constraint as electorate will have to travel long distances on tortuous roads to get to the local government secretariat to get registered.”
Sango was of the view that the venue should have been unbundled and simplified to hold in each federal ward of the various local government areas of the country.
Speaking on the same issue of ease of access to registration venue, State chairman of the APC, Latep Dabang, courtesy of a proxy, suggested that to save cost, some other delineation model should have been used that “will be less in number and administrative implications that even using the structure of the federal wards in the country.”
Chairman of the upcoming Action Democratic Party, ADP, Chief Nanyak Daman, sought to know from the INEC what are the plans for constituencies delineation, noting that “since the last exercise, there have been developments such as massive movement and relocation of people and formation of new settlements that need to be provided for in the electoral arrangements towards the next general elections.”
The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) called on the INEC to particularly appeal to stakeholders and every electorate against under-aged voting, adding that although “under-age voting is a moral issue, it is often perpetrated by desperate politicians who shield offenders from the hand of the law.”
