INEC denies alleged plan to under-register southeast

macfranc007 March 17, 2018 Nigeria News today & Breaking news ▷ Read Nigerian newspapers 24/7 Adeola Opeyemi

- INEC has denied the rumour that the commission is plotting to not register all voters in the southeast of Nigeria

- The national commissioner of the commission in southeast said this is an unfair and untrue rumour

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says there is no attempt by the commission to under-register the southeast.

National Commissioner of the commission, southeast, Prof. Ibeanu Okechukwu, made this known while inaugurating Information Communication Technology/Continuous Voter Registration training centre in Enugu on Friday, NAN reports.

“I cannot sit in a zone where there is an orchestrated attempt to under-register the zone

“Enugu is one of the best performing states in the continuous voter registration in the country,” he said.

Okechukwu said that aside the 17 registration centres in the local government areas, 18 additional centres were created, bringing total registration centres in the state to 35.

On National Assembly’s re-ordering of 2019 elections time-table and President Muhammadu Buhari’s decline of assent to amended Electoral Act, he said INEC was not involved in anyway.

“The process of law-making and amendment is very clear. INEC is not involved in law-making; it only implements the law.”

On possibility of transmitting election results from polling units to collating centres electronically, Okechukwu said that INEC did not at anytime, promise to transmit results electronically.

He disclosed that the commission had been test-running how best to deliver electoral verdict, adding that the “idea was to get the most robust result transmission mechanism”.

According to him, the Electoral Act is clear on result management. It is essentially manual.

Earlier, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Mr Emeka Ononomadu, had said that Enugu registered more voters than most states in the country in ongoing CVR.

Ononomadu said that the commission had distributed 10,000 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to registered voters in the state, adding that 120,000 PVCs were still unclaimed in the state’s 17 local government areas.

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“We have also upgraded some data capturing machines and distributed 11 new ones for improved CVR.”

He assured that INEC would continue to do its best to ensure that 2019 elections in Enugu State were exceptional.

NAIJ.com earlier reported that INEC has warned people against illegal registration of voters nand the creation of fake permanent voters cards (PVCs).

In the statement which was signed by the administrative secretary of the commission in the state, P.A. Atser, INEC said some people are carrying out illegal registration of voters in Offa local government area of Kwara state by using scanned INEC permanent voter card through an application called Corel Draw.

The commission said a suspect has already been arrested and is helping the Nigeria Police with their investigations.

NAIJ.com special report on Anambra governorship election on NAIJ.com TV