INEC registers 1.5m voters for Adamawa bye-election

From Umar Dankano, Yola

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has charged the nine political parties that conducted congress and governorship primary in Adamawa State to encourage the electorate to come out en-masse and collect their voters card in accordance with the electoral procedure.

The state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Barrister Kassim Gaildam gave the charge yesterday in Yola at the occasion of distribution of soft copies of Adamawa state voters register to political parties fielding candidates for the governorship bye-election slated for 11th October, 2014.

Barrister Gaidam stated that the aim of the soft copies exercise is to ensure another credible, transparent, free and fair governorship election since the register has been cleaned up and tidied through removal of multiple registrants, under aged voters as well as invalid registrations whose finger print were not captured and those whose pictures were not cleared.

He disclosed that there are 1,529,636 registered voters in Adamawa state, saying that the amount was arrived at after duplicate/multiple registration, under aged voters and invalid registration have been expunged from the register.

“The register has been cleaned up and tidied through the removal of duplicate/multiple registrants, under aged voters and invalid registration (i.e those whose finger prints were not captured and those whose pictures were not clear),” he said.

The REC however noted that there are 6 units in Yola North, Mubi and Numan LGA’s that have less than 50 voters adding that the state office has taken up the issue with INEC headquarters and the outcome will be communicated to the people of the area in due course.

He added that all the issues and challenges identified will be addressed during the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) scheduled to take place at the end of October, 2014 adding that the exercise will afford the opportunity to those who have not registered and those with challenges indicated above to register and obtain their PVC to be used for the general elections of 2015.

He added that statistics from the register shows that the Youth between the ages of 18 to 35 years constitutes over 43 percent of Voters Register in Adamawa state urging political parties to use the information to engage the youth productively and initiate empowerment programmes for them.

Gaidam similarly urged political parties to take advantage of the two days extension of the distribution of the Permanent Voters Cards to massively obtain their Voters card.

He assured all the political parties of a level playing field during the exercise adding that the commission will be nonpartisan during the conduct of the general election.