Hollow Ritual: INEC’s Voter Registration Extension, Profit For Corrupt Staff And Smart Politicians
The Oasis Reporters
August 23, 2018
When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) extended the deadline for the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise by two weeks to be concluded at the end of August there were shouts of joy, because citizens are desirous to effect a change in the polity and be the determinants of which politician stayed in office, and which would have to go.
The extension is coming a few days after TakeItBack Movement, OurMumuDonDo Movement, as well as the Presidential Aspirants Coming Together (PACT) initiative, and concerned Civil Society Organisations, met with officials of INEC to call for an extension of the deadline to enable more Nigerians participate.
Then churches lent their voices, like Bishop Oyedepo’s Winner’s Chapel that had the same message with a video clip urging everyone to go out and register rather than be complaining.
Almost overnight, the crowds at INEC registration offices became overwhelming.
INEC smiled.
They knew what they did in 2015 that disenfranchised tens of millions of Nigerians desirous to obtain the all important voter’s card. The same act was dusted up one more time.
This is how it goes: Rather than have registration points where voter’s would normally go to cast their votes during voting, this time around, Voters would be required to travel sometimes, 50 to 100 Kilometers to the local government headquarters. Still there’d be no guarantee that a prospective voter would even get his name on the list or even get registered. Even if one were to be registered, it would be almost certain that one would not get his registration slip, either because the printer didn’t work, or that the generating set wouldn’t function.
Meaning, come back another time. And that’s almost 1,000 naira or more spent on transport fare.
Oasis Reporters correspondent in Ibadan saw how beleaguered students of the foremost university in the country woke up as early as five O’clock in the morning to travel to Agodi Gate for the registration. In the end they got whipped without even getting to register due to the bedlam in that place, and their transport fare wasted for nothing.
Take the case of Ibadan city in Oyo State for instance. The metropolitan side of Iwo Road would have it’s local government at the border with Osun State, a very remote village. Transport fare would be about 500- 600 naira going and coming back. Without the guarantee of getting registered that same day with all the chaos and bedlam and security personnel horsewhipping rowdy crowds.
How many more times can anyone endure the hardship, financial stress and loss of office working hours just in pursuit of a voter’s card?
Those that manage to get through the confusion would readily tell you how they “manipulated” their way through, and it is not an encouraging sign at all.
Hapless politicians have already found a way out. They secretly roll out buses to ferry would be registrants from their constituencies to the local government Secretariat. By a very complex and special arrangements, those that arrive in the vehicle of the favoured politician would be confidently marched into the office to get registered.
The politician’s agents would have taken the names and phone numbers of the people they brought. It is just a patriotic service, they say. But inconvenience allowance is passed on to everyone who’d register with a modest lunch thrown in for good measure and a little exhortation on their manifesto.
You do not need to be told that if those in the daily entourage of the politicians can get as much as 500 to 1,000 naira each, the INEC Staff that would ignore the long lines of queues to attend to the politician and their entourage, would begin to lay foundations for their personal houses in their various villages.
Never mind those who remain on the queue for days and hours in the sun, dodging the horsewhip of security agents. They still will not get registered,as it happened in 2015. For this is the show of INEC, and the set time for them to make their kill. They won’t decentralize the registration centers. Let Nigerians suffer first, and INEC Staff do their backroom deals with toothpick in the mouth when they belch.
Therefore by the reason of the sweat of the politician that ferried registrants, he already knows his voters one on one and he has already paid for the vote upfront. He knows who will win and what the stakes are.
