INEC commences 3rd quarter registration of Permanent Voters Card
The Bauchi State Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the commencement of its third quarter registration of eligible voters in the state.
This was disclosed by the Electoral Officer (EO) in charge of Bauchi Local Government Area, Alhaji Aliyu Hassan Shaaba in an interview with journalists in his office.
Alhaji Shaaba explained that the third quarter exercise will target certain group of eligible voters that includes those that have attained the age of 18 years, those that have not registered before, transferred residents, corrections of dates of births or names and those whose card were defaced.
He also called on all eligible voters to avail themselves the opportunity maintaining that, “no voters card, no voting in future elections.”
Shaaba informed that the exercise is to be carried out between the hours of 9:00 am and 3:00 pm during working days.
Some eligible voters who spoke to our correspondent while on queue waiting to be registered expressed disaffection on how the exercise was being conducted.
Mallam Sa’idu Hadi of Inkil who said, “I left my house around 3:00 am and was the first to write my name on a lists that is going to be used on first-come-first serve basis but to my surprise, my name appeared on the serial number 33rd on the lists and the exercise is targeting only one hundred people in a day.”
Lamido Yusuf of Unguwan Dawaki also corroborated Hadi’s allegation saying, “I think it is the INEC officials that write their relatives or friends names on the lists before passing it to those that comes to INEC office physically to write their names on the lists.
Even if one is the first person that comes, there are always others that are on the lists before you.”
Reacting to the allegations, Alhaji Shaaba said there is no iota of truth in what the eligible voters are insinuating with regards to the registration exercise.
“It is the eligible voters themselves that always write the names of relatives or friends after writing theirs on the first-come-first-serve lists that we use.”
Samuel LUKA, Bauchi
