By Cajetan Mmuta
A civil society organization, Yiaga Africa, on Monday, called the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to quickly resolve the internet problem behind the slow pace of ongoing continuous voters’ registration exercise in Anambra state.
Miss Chinemerem Onuorah, program officer, Yiaga Africa’s Power of 18 projects, who stayed this in a statement in Awka the state capital, said that INEC servers were either down or too slow to efficiently and smoothly register the number of people who visited the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR), centers to register daily.
She noted that the internet problem was discouraging residents, especially, first-time voters from participating in the ongoing CVR and also vote in the Nov 6 election in Anambra.
It would be recalled that in July, YIAGA Africa provided the sum of N2 million and organized training to support civic projects aimed at mobilizing young people to register and vote in the Nov.6 governorship election in Anambra.
She said: “In July, YIAGA Africa officially launched #ThePOWERof18 project; a scheme to train and mobilize 10 young indigenes of Anambra, to mobilize 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 mobilizing hundreds of first-time registrants among them through symposiums, lectures, town hall meetings, and even football competitions for young people.”
While highlighting some of the challenges encountered in the mobilization drive, Onuorah said that many willing young people who visited the CVR centers to register, could not conclude their registration due to internet problems.
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“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 centers to register, they are turned back to go and do the online registration first.
“We recommend that INEC fixes the issue of slow internet so that people who show up at the center will not be discouraged from doing their registration.”
“There should be a separate machine at the registration centers that can attend to people who did not complete the online registration so that they can begin and conclude the process physically,” she stated.
