IPAC expresses disappointment over CVR exercise in S’East

The South East caucus of the Interparty Advisory Council (IPAC) at the weekend expressed its disappointment over the way the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise is being implemented in the South East zone.

The caucus also raised the alarm over the possible disenfranchisement of huge number of prospective young voters in the South East zone following the shoddy manner the exercise was being conducted.

The chairman of IPAC, South East caucus, Chief Emeka Okafor, disclosed this while speaking with newsmen in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, stating that the Council was not satisfied with the level of logistics put in place by INEC to capture the expected number of young persons who have come of age of voting.

Chief Okafor was of the opinion that having gone round the registration centres with his team, IPAC observed that a huge number of prospective voters were losing interest in the registration exercise after being subjected to endlessly wait for hours without being captured in the voters register.

The IPAC chairman said that the very slow pace of the registration exercise made the prospective young voters to get frustrated and abandon the idea of obtaining voter’s card, hence the urgent need for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make the exercise less cumbersome.

INEC, Chief Emeka Okafor said “should ensure that young persons who have attained the required age for voting are given the opportunity to register to participate in future elections”, stating that it has become most pertinent for INEC to take urgent action now and remove the logjam in the registration exercise, especially in Anambra State where governorship election would hold in a few months’ time.

According to him, “People are not really happy at the slow pace of registering of voters in all the states of the South East. INEC must do something to ensure that all eligible voters are captured.”

The IPAC chairman noted that INEC should have shown more seriousness in the continuous voter registration by decentralising the registration centres instead of concentrating them in the local government headquarters as well as making more machines available, lamenting that shoddy jobs arising from inadequate logistics by the body had in the past resulted in low registration of voters in the South East zone thereby reducing their voting population hence the need to correct the anomaly.

He therefore called on the governors of the South East zone to take up the challenge of ensuing that every eligible voter was registered, adding that the state chief executives should not only mount intensive mobilisation campaign in their respective states but also assist INEC with logistics where necessary to make the registration exercise smooth.

He reminded the governors that without voters, there could be no credible poll and democracy would be imperiled hence the need do everything possible to ensure that no eligible voter was denied the opportunity to be added to the nation’s voting population.