By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja
As the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, resumes the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) on Monday, June 28, nationwide, the electoral body has revealed that it would deploy 5,346 personnel to man 2,673 registration centres.
The Chairman of the Commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this yesterday in Abuja during the presentation of INEC Voter Enrolment Device (IVED) and online registration portal for the exercise at a meeting he held with media executives.
IVED is an Android tablet to be used in place of the existing Data Capturing Machine used for CVR in previous exercises.
The Commission, according to Prof. Yakubu, before now had 1,446 registration centres where it registered 14. 2 million voters between 2017 and 2018.
His words, “Learning from the experience of what happened, we have now almost doubled the number of those centres.
“Our hope is that unlike 14.2 million we registered in the previous exercise, we are targeting a minimum of 20 million registrants this time. It will take the number of registered voters to about 100 million,’’ Yakubu said.
He explained that a majority of the 5,346 personnel to be deployed would be INEC officials, while ad-hoc staff would be used where the Commission lacks the required number of personnel.
The Commission, the INEC Chairman added, was working with stakeholders for the security of personnel and equipment to be deployed.
Yakubu disclosed that the design for both the online portal and IVED were done by INEC engineers, taking into consideration Nigeria’s peculiarity, including weather, for its durability.
He stated that registrants would be able to know where machines for registration are located via the portal.
The Commission, he further said, was working on ensuring that Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) for internally-displaced persons were reproduced for them so as not to be disenfranchised.
He noted that many would have lost their cards while under siege.
Prof. Yakubu also said that PVCs for newly-registered voters would be produced on quarterly basis after the registration, noting that the list of the registrants would be displayed at the registration units for claims and objections.
While presenting the online portal and IVED, INEC’s Director of ICT, Mr Chidi Nwafor, said that the online portal was designed to serve various needs of eligible Nigerians for the registration.
These, according to Nwafor, include new registration, review of registration, and review of personal details or voting centres, PVCs replacement or collection.
His words, “As a new voter, you can pre-register online, or as a registered voter, you can revalidate your voter registration, request to update your information or transfer your voter registration to another polling unit”.
He explained that registrants could register their details online before going to the nearest registration centre selected by them for photographs and finger prints capturing to complete the exercise.
