A total of 25,929 prospective voters in Borno, have so far completed registration in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The INEC Head of Department, Voter Education and Publicity in Borno, Mallam Adamu Garba Meri, made this known in Maiduguri.
Garba said some of the 25,929 people who completed their registration were among the total of 87,171 people that registered online as at November 3.
“The 87,171 is the figure for those that registered online amongst which some went and completed their registration at the INEC centers.
“And in addition, some prospective voters went to the center physically and had their registration done. So, those that started online and completed their registration plus those that went to the registration centers physically gave a combined figure of 25, 929 of registered voters during the ongoing CVR for the state as at Wednesday, 3rd November, 2021,” Garba said.
He urged those who registered online, but were yet to complete thier registration to go to any INEC registration centre for data capture of their face and finger print, without delay.
Garba cautioned against multiple registration pointing out that those involved in multiple registration should know that its an offence punishable under the extant electoral law if convicted.
He urged stakeholders to complement INEC’s effort at mobilizing eligible members of the public that had attained the required voting age or have problems with their voters card to use the opportunity of the CVR to address them.
Garba said INEC had created 56,872 additional new polling units nationwide out of which Borno got 1,138, raising the number of polling units in Borno from 3,933 to over 5,000.
Garba explained that Maiduguri Metropolitan Council has the highest number with 163 additional polling units while Kala-Balge has the least with seven polling units.
The head of voter education and publicity unit explained that the CVR exercise also provided the opportunity for people wishing to change their polling locations to do so as the units are meant to address congestion and bring the polling unit closer to voters residence.
On the challenges posed by insecurity to the exercise in Borno, Garba said INEC had already met stakeholders from Local Government Areas affected by insurgency, whose people are in camps in Maiduguri where centres had been designated for them in Maiduguri to go for the CVR exercise.
“The commission has discussed with the stakeholders for the respective local governments affected by the insurgency through the INEC local government offices and they have agreed upon certain locations within the metropolis and some safe areas of the environs to operate the CVR there.. changing location(s) is only after due consultations with the respective stakeholders for the local governments to new ones where there is a good number of internally displaced people for their local governments who shall be captured in the ongoing CVR,” Garba said.
