Listen Live
By Remi Johnson
As the date to end the voter registration draws closer, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and traditional rulers have Advocated extension of the registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Senior Special Assistant on Community Relations to the FCT Minister, Tanko Yamawo, made the call when he led a delegation to the palaces of the Ona of Abaji , Yunusa Baba, and the Se’peyi of Garki Usman Nga-Kupi to assess the exercise in Abuja.
YAMAWO who raised concern that Nigerians cannot elect leaders of their choice without the PVC, explained that the extension would give opportunity to many people to get their PVCs.
While noting that the FCT Administration had a free and fair area Council election, Yamawo said the administration would continue to initiative measures that would ease the registration for credible electoral processes in the territory.
According to Yamawo, the registration exercise in the FCT was very slow due to few data capture machines in circulation, hence the need for extension.
His words:”The machines are not enough, even the available ones are slow, if you go to the registration centre people are stranded no machines to capture them. Therefore, we are calling on INEC to extend the registration, it is not as if people are not coming out but the machines are not enough, so it is difficult to capture the number of voters that came out.
How can one person spend four, five to six days to register for PVC, yet the person is not registered. We are calling on INEC to extend the registration date so that every body that is within the voting age will be registered.” Yamawo said.
Responding, the Se’peyi of Garki, Usman Nga-Kupi, urged FCTA administration to liaise with INEC and extend the registration exercise for people to exercise their franchise.
“July 31 is too close, it should be extended, if the registration closes today or Sunday that means the result is not achieved. Most of our people live in rural areas, and the means of communication is very poor, you can’t reach them immediately”
Nga-Kupi also corroborated that the machines for capturing were not enough for the number of people making frantic efforts to acquire their PVCs.
