Voter Registration: INEC To Spend N6.6b For One Week Extension - Jega

Source: THEWILL. - thewillnigeria.com
ELECTORAL COMMISSION CHAIRMAN, PROFESSOR ATTAHIRU JEGA.
ELECTORAL COMMISSION CHAIRMAN, PROFESSOR ATTAHIRU JEGA.

ABUJA, Jan 26, (THEWILL) - Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega today fell shot of demanding for additional funds to continue with the highly criticized voter registration exercise, but he told the Senate that the commission would incur an extra cost of N6.6 billion for a one week extension of the exercise.

The Senate however notched Jega's demand up on time extension and approved a one month extension for the exercise despite his demand during his more than three and half hours submission before the Senate-in- plenary for only one week extension.

The approval which was sequel to a rushed passage of the Electoral Act amendment bill barely 24 hours after the House of Representatives handed down similar gesture to the commission. The extension was the high point of the amendment which was fast tracked from first reading through to the final third reading and eventual passage.

With the development INEC now has to tidy up everything one month (30days) before the April election as against the two months (60days) in the previous Electoral Act. It now awaits Presidential assent for it to become an Act.

Earlier, Jega who was summoned to appear before the senate's Committee of the whole on Tuesday against the backdrop of the myriad of complaints trailing the registration exercise told the senators that from INEC's projection, one week from the January 29th to February 5 would be sufficient to complete the exercise.

"From our own projection as I speak with you now sir, if the electoral act is properly amended, we believe that if we have an extension of one week from the 29th to the 5th of February, God willing we will be able to register every register-able Nigerian. The constraints we have as the provision of the electoral act stands now, is that we have to finish all registrations latest 60 days to the election which is latest by the second week of February.

"So as it stands now unless there is an amendment to the electoral act, we cannot do much extension beyond four days. That is between the 29th to the second of February. But if the National Assembly graciously amends the provision of the constitution, if we have an extension of an additional one week, we believe sir that we will be able to finish this exercise very successfully. We have all the projection", he said.

Speaking on the deployment of the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machine Prof. Jega said;

"The reports reaching us from the fields, sir were that there are initial problems. First of all, on the day that we commenced the registration, only 11000 out of 132000 direct capturing machine had been delivered, but today only about 120 000 have been deploy to the polling units.”

Jega nonetheless explained that there were additional problems with the setting of the finger printing machine from the first day; "where we discover that the setting was very high and that setting was for the highest standard of finger print for forensic purpose and election is not a forensic matter, that is why we had these difficulties because the scanners were very sensitive, if you have any problem with your finger whether it is stained with oil or whatsoever, it will refuse to accept you. So the first day was a disaster because the machine was just rejecting anybody that came to register. But the second day, we had discovered this and we have taken measures to correct it by deploying what we call a patch to address the problem of finger print scanner.

"And as many Nigerians have testified, by the fourth day, that we have been able to increase the registration remarkably. Obviously there are still some additional challenges and many people have been identifying them, we reorganise these challenges.

"If you recall sir, in 2006 when the registration started, there were barely 1000 direct data capturing machine. But we have been able to deploy on the day it started, at least 107, 000 direct data capturing machine. So if there are problems sir, frankly as I speak to you now sir, we have reached a comfort level. On the first day of registration, sir, we have the statistic nationwide, we were only able to register about 250 000 on that first day because of those problems. As I speak to you now sir the average registration per day is about 4.3 million.

"So we did our projections from this statistic that we have that if we have additional one week just to cover the initial problems that we had, we should be able to register every Nigerian that come out to register. Unfortunately, one of the contractors disappointed us, but as of two days ago we now have all the machines delivered to us and we have them delivered to the states. But there are still some polling units which have not been reached.

“Kwara will get their own, every state accept Kwara have received the full complement of their DDC machines plus the 10 percent extra which we believe can be used to compliment other places where there is none," he added.

Jega also gave insight to the number of voters already registered saying; "On the first day nationwide, we were able to register only 250 000 voters but as we deployed equipment and software, as I speak with you by two days ago, the average per day was 4.3 million. As I speak with you by two days ago, we had registered 28.5 million Nigerians. On an average of 4.3 million per day going up, by our own estimation by Saturday, when we close by 29th we would have registered anywhere between 23 and 25 million Nigerians. If we get an additional extension of seven days still using that projection of 4.3 million per day, by the end of that one week be able to register more than 65 million Nigerians," he added.

On Electoral Act he said; "In fact the extension we are asking for, I do not expect that you can give us one week, what you can help us do is to help us remove the provision in the electoral act that says voter registration must end 60 days to election. Under normal circumstances sir, the issue of registration should be administrative, but somewhere it came under the electoral act and now you have the responsibility to help us address it. If you can remove that and make it administrative to INEC, frankly the problems will be resolved," Jega said.


The contentious issue of rerun primary elections reared its head as Jega clarified INEC's objection. In his words he declared that the provision of the act clearly says that INEC should provide guidelines for political parties' primaries and convention and the guidelines for the election.

"Everything we are doing is to bring sanity to the system. The timetable is very clear, every primary ends on the 15th of January. All nominations should be submitted by the 31st of January. If we wake up and somebody says he is going to do primary again long after 15th of January, we are obligated to draw his attention to the provision that the date for primary has closed, that is what we have done and I do not see how we can be seen to broken any law or acted contrary to the provision of the law," he stated.