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Two days into the
voter registration exercise, residents in many parts of Lagos State
have continued to experience slow-paced operation at the centres.

The exercise, which
commenced on Saturday nationwide, has been hampered by technical
hitches in Lagos. “This is not what I expect at all,” says Okechukwu
Johnson, a resident of Oregun, who came to register at one of the
centres in Alausa area of the neighbourhood, where registration has not
started as at 12 noon even though the registration officials arrived as
early as 9am. “I expect to see the same vigour with which [Attahiru]
Jega has been boasting in the media at the registration centre. But
imagine I have been standing here for almost two hours and I don’t even
know whether I will be able to register today because this machine is
not working.”

Problems with machines

A survey of most of
the centres revealed an impressive turnout of people interested in
registering. In some centres, people offered assistance to get the
exercise underway as early as possible. Officials of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), were noticed struggling with the
operations of some of the machines. According to Azeez Akinola, a
resident of Ikosi area in Ketu, the inability of the attendants to
operate the machines could disenfranchise many voters.

The situation was
the same in Ikorodu, Mile 12, Ketu, Ojota, Iyana Ipaja, Surulere ,and
many other parts of Lagos. The exercise was characterized by excessive
delay in the registration of each voter. Some of those who turned out
to be registered said it was taking between 30 minutes and an hour to
register a single voter with the Direct Data Capture machine. Sesan
Daini, a resident of Ikorodu, said that in Igbogbo area of Ikorodu
Constituency II, where there are five registration centres, only one
centre worked on Saturday. “It is a deliberate thing by Jega, I
believe,” he said. “I remembered Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)
called Jega to use the Delta State gubernatorial election to test run
the DDC machines so that any unforeseen anomaly can be corrected. He
refused. If we cannot have proper registration exercise, how can we
have credible election?”

Wasiu Ogunrinde, a
civil servant, who lives in Mile 12, said that he was at the Omo-Banta
centre to register on Saturday but left without doing so after a
three-hour wait. One of the attendants told us yesterday that they had
technical problem and today the same excuse is being given as the cause
of delay.”

Improvement soon

Adekunle Ogunmola,
the Lagos State INEC Electoral Commissioner, however, assured Lagos
residents of an improved registration exercise as from Monday. “Let me
just tell you that we are busy in the office now rectifying the various
faults we have noticed,” he said. “As from tomorrow [Monday], I can say
that twenty percent of the centres will be able to register people in
less than five minutes.”