Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives has called on authorities of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deploy adequate voter’s registration machines across the country, with a view to easing the challenges facing eligible Nigerians ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Spokesman for the caucus, Hon. Victor Ogene, who gave the charge during an exclusive interview with Nigerian Tribune, also said he had urged his colleagues in the opposition to give update on the prevailing situation in the various federal constituencies.
He said: “Again, only few days ago I asked my Colleagues on the opposition minority platform to let me know what the experiences have been in terms of the ongoing voter registration. And we seem to have a unanimity of responses. To which, one, the machines they are using in the different Local Governments/federal constituencies are inadequate.
“In my federal constituency, for instance, just two machines to register thousands of people. Not only do we have paucity of machines we also have a situation where the machines were said to have been configured in Abuja and are very slow. So they end up registering an average of 40 to 50 people in an entire day.
“Three, because of all these hiccups, even the time put for the conclusion of the exercise, July 10th, will certainly leave many of our people disenfranchised because they will not get registered by then.
“So let me use this opportunity on behalf of the Minority Caucus to appeal to INEC to extend the deadline, two, to make more machines available to each Local Government and federal constituency.
“It is Nigerians they want to register. What are they afraid of? How come we have 176,974 machines for the different polling units. We have machines for each polling unit. How come it comes to registration of voters? They give them only two. So something is fishy somewhere. And INEC must begin early in the day. To appoint itself that they really want Nigerians to get registered and vote. It’s also a way of data collection.
“But when they put all these hurdles in the way of Nigerians with two machines that means the machines can’t even go around. People will spend more in terms of transportation to go and get registered. And how many Nigerians when the average woman will go out to the market? If she doesn’t go she can’t eke out what the family will eat that day. And then you want her to spend an entire day pay transport, go still not get registered and come back a second time.
“So they must make life a little bearable for our people. It is not everything that will make people go through harrowing experiences just to get registered to vote,” Hon. Ogene who represents member representing Ogbaru Federal Constituency of Anambra State queried.”
As part of efforts aimed at addressing the issue, he disclosed plan to sponsor a motion under ‘matter of public importance’ on the floor of the House for necessary legislative intervention.
