As civil society organizations engage Commission on CVR
From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it will give Anambra State a special preference by taking the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) to the wards which are the Registration Areas (RA).
Disclosing this at the INEC State headquarters Awka when a delegation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) met with the Commission on CVR, the INEC Administrative Secretary, Bar. Ongele Thomas said the exercise at the Wards would last for one week from August 10 to August 16, 2017.
The Coalitions that met with INEC are Transition Monitoring Group, Voice to the People Partners (V2P) and Civil Society Coalition on Transparency and Accountability (COTAG). Civil Rights Concern leads the TMG coalition in the South-east of Nigeria and coordinates the V2P programme in Anambra State at the state level.
Ongele commended the CSOs for their show of concern and determination to have the coming election in the state succeed and urged them to assist in educating the people.
Answering questions on the preparation of INEC for the November 18 governorship election in the state, Ongele said, “We are on top of the situation.
Even if they put the election next month, we are ready.
What other preparations are we doing other than what we have been doing before which will still be done here?
“We are going to use our smartcard readers to accredit voters. And you know with the smartcard reader, if you bring a card that is not from here, it cannot read you.”
Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Okey Onyeka had urged the INEC to decentralize the registration centres to communities to ease the problem of distance and reduce the number of people that might not register.
The group also advised the electoral umpire to provide more personnel for the exercise and train them to use the equipment effectively and provide more machines for the exercise.