The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has embarked on training of its ICT personnel ahead of the biometric capture of online pre-registered voters starting on July 19.
The reports that the workshop organized for for INEC Heads of ICT nationwide was on Technological Application in the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) System.
Speaking during the workshop in Lagos, INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Mr Festus Okoye, urged participants to make self-restraint, gender sensitivity and transparency their watchwords.
The national commissioner urged the INEC ICT heads to acquaint themselves with the operation of the backend processes and understand the legal framework that underpinned the registration processes.
Okoye said: “As Heads of Department of ICT in your state, you will no doubt play a crucial role in the deployment and management of the new technology.
“As the drivers of the online and physical registration solutions, we must master the new generation equipment deployed by the Commission for the CVR.
“All registration and revision officer must develop their capacity to handle the new CVR processes and procedure by being sensitive to the needs of registrants.
“Professionalism, good mannered conduct, self-restraint in the face of provocation, gender sensitivity and transparency must be the watch word.”
Okoye, who urged eligible Nigerians to register to vote, said that the commission was determined to deepen the use of technology in the electoral process.
He said that the application of technological innovation to the CVR process was designed to facilitate ease of registration, especially within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and to minimise data loss.
“We must improve with every election and with every electoral cycle, that will be our legacy and the legacy we must leave for the Nigerian people,” he added.
According to him, the commission will continue to work assiduously to reduce manual processes in our electoral process, thereby reducing incidence of manipulation, human intervention and fraud.
Okoye added that the CVR exercise, which commenced on June 28 with the online pre-registration process, had shown that about 258,000 Nigerians had opened an account to carry out various activities on the registration portal.