Nigerian Tribune observed during a visit to the politician’s residence in Warri, Delta State, on Sunday that people were undergoing registration in the hall of the palatial building.
Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were seen carrying out the exercise under the watchful eyes of some prominent Ijaw youth leaders.
Investigations revealed that 11 Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines, according to security source, were deployed for the exercise while one of those who registered on the premises claimed that he saw 16 machines
Nigerian Tribune gathered that the voter registration was being carried out under the pretext that they were for the indigenes of Anyakoromor community in Burutu Local Government Area that were recently displaced by the operatives of the Joint Task Force (JTF) during their encounter with militant leader, John Togo.
But further investigations revealed that registration of voters was ongoing in Anyakoromor community simultaneously.
However, INEC Public Relations Officer (PRO), Levi Unigwe, said he was not aware of such arrangement, as no machine was allocated to the prominent Ijaw leader’s residence.
“He is doing so at his own risk,” the PRO stated.
Efforts to get the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Delta State were unsuccessful, as he did not pick his calls.
Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan’s kinsmen have raised the alarm over what they called conspiracy to disenfranchise eligible voters from the South-South region.
The alarm was premised on the non-provision of the DDC machines in some local government councils of the South-South states a week after the exercise started in all states of the federation. The three Warri local government areas only got the DDC machines on Saturday.
President Jonathan’s kinsmen on Sunday, in Kiagbodo, the hometown of Chief Edwin Clark, alleged a grand conspiracy by a ‘cabal’ within the INEC to disenfranchise them during the April general election.
They alleged the ‘Northernisation’ of the ongoing voter registration by an unnamed official of INEC.
They claimed that the several cases of malfunctioning of the DDC machines, as being experienced in the southern part of the country, particularly in the Niger Delta region, was only peculiar to the region and was not being experienced in the northern part of the country.
Chief Clark had summoned the meeting of his kinsmen to brainstorm on the problems of the voter registration in the region.
The meeting which attracted several traditional rulers and stakeholders was convened mainly to sensitise the people to the need to register en masse so as to ensure President Jonathan’s victory in the April 2011 presidential election.
They wondered why there were no shortages of materials in the northern part of the country, as was being experienced in the South.
Besides, the meeting queried why the DDC machines sent to the North did not seem to have problems as being experienced in the South.
While calling on his Ijaw kinsmen to get registered, Clark said that they would resist the alleged conspiracy to disenfranchise the region.
Meanwhile, as voter registration enters its second week, a myriad of complaints has continued to trail the exercise in Plateau State, as no fewer than seven DDC machines have reportedly been carted away in Lantang Local Government Area of the state.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that men of the underworld, who had been watching the movement of the machines in the locality, broke into one of the stores of the INEC in Lantang and made away with the machines without being noticed by security men within the vicinity.
The Public Relations Officer of INEC in Plateau State, Mr Bencyn Ikpe, who said the unfortunate incident was a big shock to the commission, considering the security in the place where the incident occurred, confirmed that thieves carted away seven DDC machines.
Mr Ikpe said immediately the incident occurred, the police in the area began an intensive search in the neighbourhood and later recovered four of the machines in a nearby bush, adding that the police were still making efforts to recover the remaining three.
Ikpe, who said he could not confirm the number of machines in the INEC store at the time it was burgled, said the machines were taken to the store in batches.
In a related development, the Plateau State deputy governor and Labour Party (LP) gubernatorial candidate in the April election, Mrs Pauline Tallen, has called on the people of the state to register in the ongoing voter registration, saying that is the only way they can effect a change in the state.
The deputy governor, who made the call shortly after she registered in Shendam Local Government Area of the state, advised the youth to guard their votes in the coming elections and also to avoid being used by those she called desperate politicians, who want to hold on to power by all means.
She appealed to INEC to extend the voter registration period, adding that the process was slow, which necessitated the need for the extension, so that no one would be disenfranchised.
Source: The Tribune
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