Some residents of Lagos are commending the state office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over improvements in the process of the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, exercise.
Our correspondent who visited some of the registration centres observed that the process is now faster with the introduction of new machines by Lagos office of INEC.
INEC Chief System Analyst, Mr. Muyiwa Yusuf had earlier informed the public that 30 new advanced machines have been distributed across Lagos State to hasten the process of registration of voters.
Speaking with SaharaReporters, some electoral officers in Lagos explained that the new machines are living up to expectations as they can register a voter in less than three minutes.
The officers, however, said that INEC need to make more of the machines available.
“The new registration machine is very fast and since we have been using it, registration process has become very fast to the extent that we attend to more people compared to the old machine. Using this new machine, registration of an eligible voter does not take more than 3 minutes.”
“Though we initially had difficulties starting it and getting it to work well, but since we have full knowledge of how it works, our staffs work faster and more people are being registered daily.”
Another electoral officer charged the electoral commission to deploy more of the new machines to more registration centres and other states.
“For this continuous voter’s registration process to record huge success, INEC need to distribute more of these new machines to all registration centres across Lagos and Nigeria.”
Commenting on the new machine, Mr. Muyiwa said it scan fingers using 4-4-2 mechanism, which is what makes the registration process faster. He also maintained that the commission is committed to registering more people before the next general election.
“Scanning of fingers is a key factor in the registration process and this new machine scans four fingers at once, scan another four fingers and finally the last two thumbs.”
He encouraged the people to locate registration centres close to them and ensure they register and vote in 2019 election, because their vote counts.
According to INEC, the registration exercise will be temporarily suspended 60 days to the commencement of the next General Elections scheduled for February 2019, according to Section 9 (5) of the Electoral Act (as amended).
But the process has been marred by complaints of delays, long queues and inadequate registration centers across the country since it began on 27 April, 2017.
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