INEC registers 40m eligible voters
INEC chairman, Maurice Iwu has said that the commission has so far registered more than 40 million Nigerians in the ongoing voter registration.
Iwu told the visiting European Union (EU) delegation on election monitoring in Abuja yesterday that before the end of the exercise on January 31, every eligible voters would have been captured by the commission.
He attributed the huge increase in the number of registered voters to the deployment of additional 20,000 DDC machines to take care of the shortages witnessed at the initial stage of the exercise.
The INEC boss added that from Jan 15 to Jan. 30, the commission would intensify its awareness campaign on voter registration for more Nigerians to be registered before the deadline.
He warned anybody or group indulging in any illegal registration as wasting their time as INEC had the technology to detect any fake or double registration.
Iwu disclosed that after the deadline, registration would be reopened in June for those who still wished to be registered to do so at their respective local government areas.
The chairman also briefed the visiting EU delegation on various electoral reforms in the commission and how it was tackling the critical challenges of electoral violence, use of money in politics, mind set and gender issue.
The chairman commended the EU for its help and partnership with the commission and to Nigeria in seeing to a free, fair and credible polls in 2007.
The Head of the EU delegation, Mr Andrew Bruce said that the mission of the team in Nigeria for two weeks is to work out modalities for its election monitoring.
Bruce gave an assurance that once the details were work out, the delegation of election observers would be in Nigeria fully at least six to eight weeks before the commencement of the election.
“We are here to listen and learn. Nigeria is such an important country to us that we cannot toy with. We hope our coming would be both mutually beneficial,’’ he said.