Bayelsa residents hail INEC on physical data capture in ongoing CVR

Nathan Tamarapreye, Yenagoa

Some residents in Bayelsa on Tuesday praised the Independent National Electoral Commision (INEC) for the seamless conduct of the second stage of ongoing Continuous Voters’ Registration (CVR) involving biometric data capture.

INEC on Monday started the nationwide biometric data capture of eligible voters who had earlier commenced the process online as well as issuance of Permanent Voter’s Cards that were yet to be collected.

Our Correspondent who monitored the exercise in Yenagoa, Bayelsa capital reports that the exercise was going on seamlessly at the INEC headquarters in Swami area of Yenagoa and the Yenagoa Local Government Area (LGA) office of the Commission.

At the Yenagoa LGA office of INEC, residents who turned up for the exercise were orderly and took turns to conduct the biometric data capture.

Mrs Grace Akenge, 68 said that she was unable to register in previous exercises and expressed satisfaction that she was able to complete the registration process within a few minutes even though she did not start the online process earlier.

For Dennis Ekiotimi, he described the technology driven approach by INEC as laying a solid foundation for electronic voting in the coming years adding that the online pre-registration process has effectively reduced the crowd.

According to him, the registration was even easier for those who had commenced the enrolment on the INEC portal and hence had a minimal waiting period for their fingerprints and image capture.

Samuel Markson also said that he completed the exercise in less than 30 minutes and gave kudos for the INEC staff for overcoming the challenges that were experienced the previous day (Monday).

“I was here yesterday, and the officials were weighed down by network issues which delayed the take off, but the Electoral Officer was up and doing, he personally went to INEC State headquarters to bring an Engineer who set up and configured the devices.

“They started late yesterday, and I opted to come back today to find out that the process is very fast. I appeal to them to sustain the tempo,” Markson said.

Mr Wilfred Ifogah, Head of Voter Education and Public Affairs of INEC in Bayelsa said the CRV was going on simultaneously in the eight LGA in the state in addition to two centres at the state headquarters.