From; Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says about 42,081 voters cards are still uncollected in the commission’s offices in Taraba State.
The state administrative secretary of INEC, Alhaji Muhammad U. Umar, disclosed this, on Thursday, at a press briefing in the commission’s head office, in Jalingo.
While announcing the suspension of the second quarter of Continuous Voter Registration exercise, Umar said that over 47,415 new registrations were recorded in the state during the period under review but regretted that people were not coming forth to collect their cards despite efforts by the commission at sensitization.
He said that the commission was currently running a radio programme on the local radio stations and carrying out community sensitization but the efforts seem to be futile.
Umar regretted that Jalingo Local Government Area alone has over 26,000 uncollected cards and called on the people to come forth and check for their cards before election time so as to reduce the pressure that could mount on the heels of elections.
He said that the suspension of the voter registration exercise was to enable the commission to process the raw data collected and print the registers for claims and objections and subsequently publish the register in the various local government areas before proceeding to commence the third phase of the exercise on the 30th of October.
Umar also denied the allegations that there was underage registration, in the state insisting that some of the persons alleged to be underage were in their 40s.
He insisted that, “the petition about underaged registration is simply unfounded. Some of the people alleged to be underaged that we have traced and found are actually in their forties and fifties. Some people that one may see and consider to be underaged come with evidence and you can not deny registering them once they have evidence to back them up”.
He said the commission has received almost a thousand transfers both intra and inter state and a total of 1,806 complaints for replacement of defaced, misplaced and faded Permanent Voters Cards PVCs.