The Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC ) is set to commence Continuous Voter Registration CVR exercise on Monday June 28. According to the commission, it would at least run for the next year.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said this on Monday in Abuja during the second quarterly meeting with Media Executives.
He said the expansion of voters’ access to polling units prepared the ground for the discharge of another important responsibility of the commission.
“The registration of eligible Nigerians as voters is one of the immediate tasks before the commission. Consequently, in the next one week i.e. Monday 28th June 2021, the commission will resume the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) nationwide.
“In doing so, the commission is introducing a portal to enable eligible Nigerians to commence registration as voters online before completing the exercise physically at designated centers nationwide. This is the first time a major exercise of this nature is handled partially online consistent with the commission’s commitment to continue to deepen the use of technology in the electoral process in Nigeria,” he said.
It is s welcome development, given that close to election the registration exercise becomes a nightmare due to long queues. And sometimes you would not know the venue or it would be very far away.
It is indeed a far cry from 2011 election when I went to a primary school near my house seven times. It was always a riot. Somebody told me that I had to go early around 5.00a.m.!
Anyway, it is hoped that people would not leave it as usual to the very end before rushing to register and use this opportunity. Our young people should register seeing that they are always online.
Important as it is, many people just try as much as possible to get the voter’s card in case of any eventuality or as a means of identification in banks or other places, but with no intention of voting.
There is voter apathy and I hear some experts say it is the job of the political parties to educate and encourage people to come out and vote and not leave it to INEC alone.
Because of the way politics is done where political parties impose an unpopular candidate, decamping, rigging and so on, people are no longer eager to go out and vote. Why should they go out and vote and at the end the glaring winner is denied victory?
“When they want us to go out and vote they say, ‘kuri’arka ‘yancinka.’(You can effect a change by your vote). But is it really true? So just to show a semblance of credibility they want people to queue and vote, but at the end of the day it is another story. I will not vote again,” one woman told me.
In any case some believe that you can’t just give up, you have to keep trying to make things work.
“We can’t allow such people to determine our life,” an optimist said.
Due to voter apathy some people have to be begged, cajoled and given inducement in terms of money, food items or soaps to go and exercise their franchise.
This is a part from the brazen vote buying on Election Day which is rampant while the security agents hardly do anything.
People are more interested in Presidential and Governorship Elections. Even when the Senatorial and House of Representatives election is to be done with the Presidential one, many people are not really interested in them. Some may not even know the candidates, let alone the state assembly election.
“I don’t even know the candidates,” you would hear complain at polling units.
The political parties probably think that if you are voting for the Presidential candidate of a particular party, you would definably vote for the Senatorial and House of Representative candidates of the same party. Likewise in the case of voting for the Governorship candidate, you should vote for the state assembly member of the same party.
There are hardly any difference between our political parties, if there were before , the cross carpeting they have done over the years is enough to smudge it, to make them into one political party, but they only chose to use different names.
The two big parties of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and All Progressives Congress, APC are more or less the same. They are avenues for criss-crossing , which also raises the question of ideology and party manifesto.
You cannot say you are in Party A because of what it stands for which you believe in and that is why you are not in Party B because of what it stands for as well.
In this regard it is like you are in a blind alley as far as ideology is concerned, though some politicians say we are not yet advanced to build our political parties on ideology as we are still struggling with power shortage, water, infrastructure, etc.
But all the same, the Continuous Voter Registration should make the political parties ginger up and take responsibility too.
