Igbo youths under the aegis of Coalition of South East Youth Leaders (COSEYL), has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to provide sufficient registration equipment and increase the number of PVC registration and voting centres in the South East.

Similarly, a political group, Youths In Politics (YIP), Nigeria staged a peaceful walk to INEC headquarters in Lagos to demand more voter enrollment machines, yesterday.

The group, which arrived at the INEC office at Sabo-Yaba around noon, complained that the ongoing Continuos Voter Registration (CVR) was taking a lot to time from applicants at various local government areas of the state due to long queues.

Addressing newsmen, President/Convener of the group, Mr Micheal Nwabufo said the exercise was strenuous and time consuming in most areas, hence the need for the electoral umpire to ease the process by taking the machines closer to the people.

Meanwhile, President General of the youth group, Goodluck Ibem, in a statement, said the registration exercise carried out only at INEC offices has become too strenuous for majority of people to participate. Ibem suggested that 100 computers should be made available in each of the local governments in the zone to speed up the registration process.

“Since the voters registration exercise commenced for the 2023 general elections, local government INEC offices have only been the only registration point for the exercise which has made it difficult and a herculean task for so many Nigerians in the South East to register for their Permanent Voters Cards. So many Nigerians coming out to INEC offices to register for their PVCs, which is the only place you can register, can’t register due to the large number of people that come out on daily basis.”

Ibem lamented the high cost of transport fares spent by the Igbo traveling to INEC offices in the past one month without being able to register for their PVC.

“The INEC office have only two computers for voters registration and one computer can register only 60 persons per day when we have over 700 persons on ground to be registered. The situation is really worrisome and something urgent must be done to address the anomaly.

“We are aware that in the North, INEC staff move from house to house to register people for their PVCs. Why then is it different in the South East? Why must people be subjected to such strenuous and inhuman treatments because the want to register for their PVCs. INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu needs to come to the South East to see for himself the suffering that our people go through to register for their PVCs due to insufficient number of computers and equipments coupled with the long distance so many people have to trek or transport themselves in other to get to INEC office where the registration exercise is done.” (Daily Sun)

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