Anambra 2013: INEC Begins Voter Registration Update

 INEC Chairman, Attahiru Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will tomorrow begin the update of voter’s register in Anambra State ahead of the November 16   governorship election.
INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukogu, who dropped the hint in a press conference in Awka yesterday said it is part of the entire spectrum of the electoral process which idea is to register Anambra State indigenes who,  after the last exercise in 2011, had attained the age of 18.
He said   the commission had completed the training of personnel to man the 4,608 polling units scattered across the state’s 326 wards where the registers would be displayed, adding that every indigene is required to go to where he or she registered to check if his or her name is captured.The exercise, he said, ends next Sunday ,stressing that those who had their voter’s card on them but could not find their names in the register should take their case to the commission  to find what transpired and rectify same.
Names of people who have died within the period of last voter’s registration exercise and the present, he explained ,would be deleted and those who didn’t register abinitio or have attained 18 years or above are required to go and register.
The exercise, he also said, is not for those who lost their voter’s cards due to flooding or fire disaster. This social category, Onukogu further explained, are simply required to go to the police to swear to an affidavit after which same is taken to the Electoral Officer (E.O) for submission with an application for a duplicate voter’s card which in turn would be forwarded to REC for an instruction for a duplicate voter’s card to be issued.
He however dismissed the possibility of manipulating the system through multiple registration, saying such attempt  would be detected by the machine.
He said   the first batch of 72 people out of 93,000 involved in multiple registration  in the last exercise in 2010 had been identified and would be prosecuted in the court of law to serve as a deterrent to others.
The INEC he said wants to conduct what he called a historic election in Anambra comparable to the best conducted by advanced electoral bodies of the western countries. He  stressed that in the process of its data consolidation, the commission found that there were 53 polling units in the state without registered voters either as a result of faulty machines or that the names were not fed into the machines after the manual registration.
He said 34 of such units were found in Awka South Local Government alone, while 19 others were scattered across the state. He said indigenes in those areas would be captured afresh.
culled This Day Live