Nigeria Content Online

The Osun State
Resident Electoral Commissioner, Oloruntoyin Akeju has attributed the
malfunctioning of some of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC)’s Direct Data Capturing (DDC) Machines to the variation in the
weather condition of the country where they are manufactured and
Nigeria where they are being used.

Mr Akeju made the
disclosure while fielding questions from newsmen at INEC headquarters
in Osogbo yesterday when the zonal commander of the Nigeria Security
and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in charge of Oyo, Osun and Ogun States,
Mudu Bunu visited him in his office during an inspection tour of the
state on the ongoing registration exercise.

The electoral
officer said the difference in the climate of the country where the
machines are manufactured is responsible to a large extent on why there
were some initial problems.

“The machines
originated from a temperate region where the weather was extremely cold
and with our own weather which is extremely hot, there are bound to be
this kind of initial problems,” he said.

Mr Akeju however
disclosed that the commission is gradually overcoming the initial
problem as majority of the machines are now operating at maximum
capacity.

“There is
improvement on a daily basis on the number of people we are able to
register. For instance on Sunday we registered about 60,000 voters
while the number had increased to 90,000 by Monday,” he said.

Responding on the
allegations of some pockets of crises in some registration centres
across the country, the NSCDC zonal commander said security will be
reinforced with security agents at all the centres in the country.

“We will seek the
assistance of our colleagues, the police and the SSS to help us secure
the safety of the machines and protect the lives of the personnel from
being attack by hoodlums,” Mr Bunu said.

Tough on the elderly

However, an INEC
registration official, Raphael Ezike, on Tuesday said that senior
citizens, above 60 years old, were mostly the ones that were having
problems being registered in the ongoing voter’s registration exercise.

“The scanners are
finding it difficult to recognise the finger prints of voters who are
60 years old and above, while those under 60 years have little
challenges,” he said.

The officer in
charge of Ward C, Alausa, Ikeja told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
that while it took less than five minutes to register younger
Nigerians, those above 60 years took much longer.

“It takes us about
five minutes to register people under 60 years old while those above 60
years old take longer minutes with the Direct Data Capture (DDC)
machines,” he explained.

The INEC official attributed the low figure recorded at the centre to the lack of power supply to recharge the machines.

“Before now, we
used to charge the only battery at other wards where there is power
supply and during such time we did not register anybody,” he said.

He, however, said that with the provision of a back-up battery now, they will be able to register more voters.