THE 23 local government chairman in Rivers State have staged a protest at the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission, alleging that the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration exercise in the state was too slow.
The council chairmen under the aegis of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria said the insufficient machines used for the exercise was a deliberate attempt by INEC to disenfranchise eligible voters in the state.
Speaking to journalists at the INEC premises on Aba Road, Port Harcourt, the Mayor of Port Harcourt and State ALGON chairman, Alwell Ihunda said any attempt to prevent eligible voters in the state from registering would be resisted.
Ihunda further said the association would allow the commission to do the right thing or they would return for a fresh protest.
“We have observed that there is a deliberate attempt by the commission to disenfranchise, and depopulate eligible voters in Rivers.
“We notice that the machines deployed in the 23 local governments are not sufficient and are not functioning well. Each time we are told that there is a server problem and it will be fixed.
“It has never been fixed and we are not satisfied with the explanations we are getting from INEC.
“We urge the commission to ensure that they provide sufficient machines in the 23 local governments or possibly deploy more machines or decentralize the registration so that it would be at the ward level so that it would not just be at the INEC headquarters in the state.”
The Mayor said the association has begun providing logistics to support the exercise and ensure security for INEC officials, but said it was sad that the commission had hidden plans.
Responding to the claims the State INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ebo Effanga, said he expected the political leaders to know better, especially as the exercise was still ongoing.
Effanga said, “There is nothing new about the suggestions they made. I think there is a high level of misinformation and ignorance of the fact that they have not taken time to go through the information by INEC when this whole process started.
“Eventually we will start the process of doing the registration at the ward level on a rotational basis. Then, there will be a schedule of which local government area or which of the wards will be doing that, while registration will still continue at the state and local government offices.”
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