From Magnus Eze, Agbodo, Obinna Odogwu, Aloysius Attah, Onitsha and Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Enugu
A civil society organization, YIAGA Africa, has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to fix the internet challenges reportedly frustrating the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise in Anambra State.
Programme Officer of the organization’s Power of 18 Project, Chinemerem Onuora, in a statement, said the internet problem was discouraging residents, especially the first time voters from participating in the ongoing exercise.
She said if the problem was not urgently fixed, many potential voters who would have loved to participate in the election in the state would not be able to do so.
Figuring out what the problem could be, Onuora said that it’s either that the INEC servers were down or too slow to efficiently and smoothly register the number of people who visited the CVR centres to register every day.
“In July, YIAGA Africa officially launched #ThePOWER of18 project; a scheme to train and mobilise 10 young indigenes of Anambra, to mobilise first time voters to register and get their PVCs, as well as vote on the election day.
“According to the recent CVR report by INEC, 120,600 persons have completed their online and physical registration process. Anambra State is leading with a total of 8,624 complete registrants.
“This can be attributed to the diligence of the Anambra people, but also largely due to the efforts of the YIAGA Africa’s project in the state.
“One month into the project, these YIAGA Rockstars have testified to mobilising hundreds of first-time registrants among them through symposiums, lectures, townhall meetings and even football competitions for young people”, Onuora said.
The programme officer, while highlighting some of the challenges encountered in the mobilisation drive, said that many willing young people who visited the CVR centres to register could not conclude their registration due to internet problems.
“It takes a toll on our YIAGA Rockstars when they have to convince people to come back the following day to try completing their registration.
“Another challenge is that many Nigerians are not tech savvy, or have access to computers and the internet to do their online registration; when they go to CVR centres to register, they are turned back to go and do the online registeration first.
“We recommend that INEC fixes the issue of slow internet, so that people who show up at the centres will not be discouraged from doing their registration.
“There should be a separate machine at the registration centres that can attend to people who did not complete the online registration, so that they can begin and conclude the process physically,” she said.
Source:- Sunnews
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