 and Iggo's social-cultural think tank with members both in Nigeria and in the diaspora, Nzu Komunna, has called on the Independent National Electro-Commission, INEC, to extend the ongoing continuous voter registration exercise beyond the tether of June 2022 now. That has been the deadline that was set aside by INEC to address the surge in eligible voters. The group has said it has observed the enthusiasm of eligible voters to get registered as well as INEC's assurances that no voter will be disenfranchised, stressing that the commission has demonstrated uncommon patriotism. In a signed statement by the executive secretary of the group, Ngozi Udumoko, the group noted that it had observed the huge turnout of eligible voters, especially youths, for more voter registration across the country. Joining us to shed more light on this is National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee for the Independent National Electro-Commission, INEC, Mr. Festus Okoye. It's good to have you join us, Mr. Okoye. Yeah, thank you so much. Great. It was a beautiful sight for a lot of Nigerians to see what happened in Lagos where we saw, in fact, some people would have wondered if it was a concert that people were going for. But then, of course, it was the turnout for the voter's registration in Lagos State. I also understand that this is being replicated across the country. But there are those who would think that INEC should allow for these voter registration to be continuous because every single day, and Nigerian turns 18, is that something that INEC is capable of doing, and why is it not the case? Well, you know that for this present registration, we started the online pre-registration on the 28th day of June 2021. And in July, we started the physical registration in 37 of our state offices and the 774 of local government areas across the federation. Although we didn't roll out in some local governments or in some local governments on account of security challenges, because we had a meeting with the various political parties, with the civil society groups and organizations, with the security agencies, and we agreed on a rollout and rollback procedure. That if we roll out and we counter-seal the criticalities, we roll back to our offices. And that's exactly what we have been doing. Now, this present challenge we have, this present surge, is something that is likely unusual. This is because this present registration the commission is doing is not a fresh registration. We already have over 85 million Nigerians in our database, those who have registered previously. So this present CBR is only for those who have never ever registered, registered, and those who have thought a thing from the last time we carried out our voter registration process. But what is going on is that those who have lost their PBC, rather than enter our online portal or go and report that they have lost their PBC, we go and register a fresh. Those who PBC have been defaced, we go and register a fresh. Those who want to do voter transfer from one state to the other, from one government to the other, or from one registration area to the other, we register a fresh. And that is not what this entire process is all about. If you look at the figure, we really bring the first and second quarter of registration. You will see that out of the 2,522,458 completed registrations, 1,390,519 were in value. And these are people who engage in multiple or double registration. So this registration is not for everybody. It's for only those who turn 18 and those who have never registered in any election whatsoever. And this thing has been going on for almost a year now. Sometimes our registration officers register one single individual a day. But you know, this 11th hour, a challenge, this 11th hour syndrome is part of the day of our political process. We normally wait until the last minute and until the last hour before we go to register. But we have taken all these things on board. And we have taken the media action to address the acute challenges in some of the states of the Federation. I must say it's a heinous task for INEC to take on. But just to go back to something that you made reference to the fact that there are lots of people who do not necessarily need to register a fresh who are doing so. My question is, the reason why we're having these issues, could it be that maybe the information was not clear enough? People were not educated as to what this CVR is for so that they would not be showing up for those instances. For example, a couple of us still have our temporary voters cards because we were unable to find our, to get our PVCs. And there has to be information as to how we can get those PVCs. And for those who are supposed to be transferring their polling to new polling units, they're supposed to have access to that information. Now, again, I'm sure you tell me it's on your website. How many Nigerians have access to the internet and how many of them can get that information if it's not readily put out there in clear words for them to understand? Now, the truth of the matter is that when you go to any of our state or local government offices to register, the reception officer will ask you whether you have registered before. Sometimes 20 people go to these registration centers and ask them whether they have registered before. They will say no. But in truth, and in fact, they have registered before. Some of them live in the cities and they have left their voter cards down there in the village. And they knew this new registration for purpose of entering the market or entering the church or doing one thing or the other. Some people who are married should do transfer. They do to do transfer. They want to go for outright registration. Now, if you come and say that you have lost your permanent voter card, sometimes we require you to provide an app to that bit, showing that you have lost your permanent voter card. And some of our people, when you ask them to provide an app to that bit, they will just simply move to another local government or another registration area and go and register when they ask them whether they have registered before. And we say no. But when we bring the registration to our office and we run our automated biometric and registration system, we will find out that they have registered before. And they have new registration with the classified app in Bali. We've employed the services of traditional robots. We have done direct advocacy. We are using the television. We are using the radio to try to educate our people on some of these issues. Many of our youth have also gone on our online portal to go and utilize the services. But what we are saying is that we recognize the fact that there has been a good challenge in terms of registration. There has been a surge in the registration figures. And based on that, just last week, the commission deployed an additional 209 hybrid machines, including fingerprint cameras and tamar printers to candlestick, to legacy, to the five states of the Southeast and to all your states. So that we can ameliorate the areas of each challenge. But we are on top of the situation and we believe that we will address this presence surge in both our registration figures. I'm going to ask this question walking on eggshells. Why does INEC have to do this all alone? Because I know that it's a stretch. You have elections in a kitty, you're going to have a shun. And of course, you're preparing for the general election. So it's a bit of work for you. Why isn't there a collaboration of sorts? I'm asking because we have banks who take our biometrics. We have the telecommunication companies who take our biometrics. We have the customs, the immigration department, who take our biometrics. Why can't we work with especially these telecommunication companies to help INEC, you know, in some of these registrations instead of stretching itself thin? Only a suggestion and a question. The independent national electoral commission has the highest database of Nigerians. Any other country you can think of, any other organization. We have the data of 55 million Nigerians in our database. What I'm saying is that we have stressed out these registrations in such a way that people will not be stressed. For those who are computer illiterate, for those who can go online, we made it as simple as possible. You just go online, key in all your information. The only thing you go to our P2 is to go and capture your finger prints and capture your pictures and you go away. And if you do that, the process lasts for less than 15 and it's been going on for over a period of one year. But I think that it will not be right for some market leaders to close down the market on these 5,000 of their members on one registration center that has one or two hybrid machines and expect us to do magic. No, that is not the way things are done. We expected the situation. We are in a day. A registration machine with a register may be between 150 individuals per day. And we have stressed out these things over a period of one year. Taking into consideration that at the end of the day, we are going to do what we call display for claims and objections. We are also going to clean up the voter's register. We are also going to print this voter's register and give it to the political parties. Get some ready form for the main election thesis, then print the permanent voter's cast of all the registrants and then get them to come and collect the permanent voter's cast instead of the election. And then stop everything relating to registration of the voting register and revision of the voter's register 90 days to the election. So all these things have to be taken on board in terms of looking at what we do, what we do. So that's why we split up, split the team out. We're filled up. But what you're telling me, it sounds more like you're taking on a lot just as I said at the beginning. And that's what I'm asking. Why can't you enlist people who have also what it takes to get bio data or to get information and then feed it to you making your job easier? Because people go to banks every day. People go to telecommunication companies every day to fix their lines or do whatever, register for their NIN. Why can't you enlist these people to help, you know, save you the trouble because you're complaining about 5,000 people per day as opposed to your expectation of 100. So what do you do to reduce that stress? Are there no strategies in sight or maybe let me say, let me use the Nigerian balance in the pipeline that would help you reduce the trouble that you're facing right now? No, I'm not complaining. The commission is not complaining that 5,000 people arrive the registration centre in a day. That is not a complaint. The complaint and the issue is that this registration process has been going on for one year, one whole year. Sometimes our registration officers register one single individual per day. And we say this thing out in such a way that anybody who is deserter of registering we have an opportunity of doing that seamlessly without any form of stress. But the challenge is that most of our people did not utilize this 11 month period. Rather, just because the registration is about to close we now have a surge to the extent that some of our registration centres are overwhelmed. But what we have done is that we have destroyed additional machines and we are going to tackle some of these challenges. In the next few days the commission will reduce the situation and then do whatever it takes to make sure that every Nigerian who is registered and who presents himself or herself to any of our registration officers gets to register. We are not going to give any Nigerians behind and we are going to make sure that people get to register because we believe that they are sovereign right and they also have the right to sign their civic rights by voting for candidates of their choice in many elections. Finally, before I let you go, doctor we have heard many people especially the south-east, the south-south, the south-west complain that before the 2019 elections they felt disenfranchised as they were unable to get their voter cards. They kept saying that every time they showed up they would say, oh, it's not ready and that's how some of them were unable to vote during the elections. It's not that they were not showing up to get those cards but they were not giving the cards. Now I know that you are an INAG representative and you're going to help us to debunk this. How are we also certain that we will not hear the same complaints before the 2023 elections? What is INAG doing within its power to make sure that nobody is left out especially those who have registered early enough to get access to those cards? What's the time frame between the registration process and when they can get their cards? For those who registered during the 4th and 2nd quarter of registration the 4th quarter of registration started on the 28th day of June 2021 and then my the 2nd quarter ended on the 14th of January 2020. Those people who registered during that period their cards are ready and have been forwarded to our local government offices as well as go and pick up their cards. For those who registered during the 4th quarter and those who have registered during this 4th quarter we want to make sure that we clean their cards where and at the end of the 2023 election so that they can collect these cards. But you know if we keep on in this project of extending the time and extending the time by the time we are going to clean the permanent voter cards it will be too late for the election and then the issue of getting to go to collect these cards becomes a huge challenge and so we want to complete everything relating to voter registration and get these cards ready send BOK SMS to all the those two cards are ready and then those who have email addresses we contact them to their email addresses and get them to come and collect these cards but no card will be collected by BOKZ every registered voter must collect the card by himself or herself and we are not going to give the card in BOK to any individual or allow anybody to collect any of those cards by BOKZ Well you have a daunting task for BOKZ and BOKZ Thank you very much Mr. Festus Okoye is the of the Independent National Electrical Commission and thank you so much for speaking with us we appreciate it always Thank you so much Well thank you all for being part of the conversation tonight That's it on Plus Politics I'm Marianne Akon Tomorrow we return with more pressing political issues as we talk for development Have a good evening