NIGERIA:DECEMBER 14th IS HERE
Yes December 14th is here with us. You may be confused as to the significance of december 14th. Well, december 14th is 120 days to the 2007 general elections in Nigeria.
In case you are still lost (which I doubt considering the enthusaism of most Nigerians and the high level of awareness in Nigeria about the problems of INEC in the on-going voter's registration) section 10 sub-section 5 of the 2006 electoral act states and I quote "The registration of voters, updating and revision of the register of voters under this section shall stop not later than 120 days before any election covered by this act"
It is likely that, even though it is less than 120 days to the 2007 polls, more than 50 million eligible voters are yet to be registered. According to the house of representative panel monitoring the registration only 3.5 million Nigerians were registered out of 60 million eligible voters and 3,867 units of the direct data capture (DDC) machines were deployed for the exercise out the proposed 33,000 units as at 25th November 2006.Presently INEC claims that it has deployed more than 18,000 units. But the big question is why did the registration start before complete delivery of the equipment.
This reminds me of the all african games hosted by Nigeria in 2003, where the BMW cars were supposed to be used for the games did not arive until midway into the games.Most of the cars remained at the port till the games ended.
With the deadline of voters registration here with us and more than 50 million Nigerians yet to be registered there is a problem. Although INEC has played down the problem by extending the deadline to february 14th contrary to the 2006 electoral act. INEC plans to combine the voters registeration with the display of voters register.
I believe that the first step to solving this problem is for the national assembly to ammend the electoral act in order to give legitimacy to the extended registeration. This will also ensure that we do not face legal questions on the validity of the 2007 polls. INEC also needs to step up the registeration process in order to ensure that every elligible voter is registered.
In case you are still lost (which I doubt considering the enthusaism of most Nigerians and the high level of awareness in Nigeria about the problems of INEC in the on-going voter's registration) section 10 sub-section 5 of the 2006 electoral act states and I quote "The registration of voters, updating and revision of the register of voters under this section shall stop not later than 120 days before any election covered by this act"
It is likely that, even though it is less than 120 days to the 2007 polls, more than 50 million eligible voters are yet to be registered. According to the house of representative panel monitoring the registration only 3.5 million Nigerians were registered out of 60 million eligible voters and 3,867 units of the direct data capture (DDC) machines were deployed for the exercise out the proposed 33,000 units as at 25th November 2006.Presently INEC claims that it has deployed more than 18,000 units. But the big question is why did the registration start before complete delivery of the equipment.
This reminds me of the all african games hosted by Nigeria in 2003, where the BMW cars were supposed to be used for the games did not arive until midway into the games.Most of the cars remained at the port till the games ended.
With the deadline of voters registration here with us and more than 50 million Nigerians yet to be registered there is a problem. Although INEC has played down the problem by extending the deadline to february 14th contrary to the 2006 electoral act. INEC plans to combine the voters registeration with the display of voters register.
I believe that the first step to solving this problem is for the national assembly to ammend the electoral act in order to give legitimacy to the extended registeration. This will also ensure that we do not face legal questions on the validity of the 2007 polls. INEC also needs to step up the registeration process in order to ensure that every elligible voter is registered.
posted by passyjango @ 3:15 PM
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