Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and the traditional rulers have requested the Independent National Electoral Commission to extend the registration for Permanent Voter Card (PVC).
The call came ahead of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) July 31 deadline earlier extended by the electoral body.
The Senior Special Assistant on Community Relations to the minister of FCT, Yamawo Tanko made the appeal yesterday at the palaces of Ona of Abaji Yunusa Baba and the Se’peyi of Garki Usman Nga-Kupi to assess the level of PVC registration exercise.
He said the FCTA was concerned over the free and fair exercise and would always evolve measures that will ease the registration.
He canvassed the extension of the registration by two weeks on the ground that the exercise was slow in the territory because of few data capture machines in circulation.
Yamawo said without a voter card, Abuja residents would not select the people of their choice to represent them.
“The machines are not enough, even the available ones are slow, if you go to the registration centre people are stranded with no machines to capture them. Therefore, we are calling on INEC to extend the registration. It is not as if people are not coming out but the machines are not enough. So, it is difficult to capture the number of voters that come out.
“How can one person spend four, five to six days to register for PVC? Yet the person is not registered. We are calling on the INEC to extend the registration so that every body that is within the voting age will be registered,” he said.
He said that allowing people to register will help them elect persons of their choice during elections, noting without voter cards, nobody will elect a good leader.
Responding, the Se’peyi of Garki, urged FCTA to liaise with INEC and extend the registration exercise as most of the people lived in rural areas where the means of communication was very poor.
“The machines brought for the exercise were not enough. Many of them come from villages everyday but can’t be registered because of the challenges. It takes up to five and six days before they can be registered. Therefore, INEC should extend the PVC’s registration” he said.
