As Tarabans jostle to beat the deadline to obtain Permanent Voters Card, (PVCs) amidst the advocacy for inclusive and widespread participation in the 2023 General elections, having to wait up on lengthy queues, officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Taraba state have resorted to reserving some machines to register people they consider as high profile personalities who allegedly pay for the preferential treatment.
Ziti News correspondent who went round Jalingo, the Taraba State Capital to monitor the level of compliance to the numerous calls for the electorates to turn out to register and obtain their voters cards to participate in the forth coming polls, ran into a team of INEC Officials who placed some voters registration machines in an office labelled the “RADIO ROOM” within the premises of the INEC office in Jalingo from where some persons where brought into it as soon as they arrived the premises to have them registered to collect Their PVCs while on the other hand within the same premise, a very long queue of prospective registrants were seen waiting on a long queue to get registered at the designated registration points.
Curious about the few number of persons been attended to in the said Radio Room, who got registered without any delay as soon as they arrive later than those lined up on the queue, in an attempt to find out the reasons, an INEC official simply referred to as Cecilia who works in the EPM unit, aggressively informed us that if we wanted a favour to get registered on the Radio Room voter’s registration Machines as the others who have been attended to there, we should inform her, as the machines where meant for only special people who are been sent in by some persons.
In a bid to enquire details about who this special persons were and if that was the legal process as stipulated by INEC, Cecilia merely answered that the machines had been brought in purposely to register the said persons specially.
Efforts to hear from the Resident Electoral Officer, REC, Taraba State, Mr. Umar Muktar on whether the said registration for special people by the officials of the INEC in Taraba State was in line with the laid down rules proved unsuccessful as he neither responded to calls or messages sent to him as at the time of filing this report.
In a chat with some officials in the INEC office in Taraba State who pleaded anonymity, they revealed that the normal standard for provision of machines at each INEC office across the country is Four Machines and an extra one called the PDDF provided to register those who turn out for registration, but in the INEC office in Jalingo. On the said day we monitored the process, only one machine was made available to register people who said they had turned out as early as 6a.m to wait for the office to open and commence registration.
Another official revealed that some registration machines had been sent out of the office as requested by some persons, especially politicians, who pay as much as between three hundred thousand to six hundred thousand naira for the machines to be taken to their desires location to register their choice of persons.
Some others alleged they had inadequate supply of working materials provided by the government expressed dismay at the inability of the Taraba REC to also request for more machines to enable them register more people daily in order to reduce the long time people are meant to spend on the long queues citing the case of some state who were recently provided more registration machines and working tools.
While we were still there at the INEC Jalingo office, at about 1p.m, the INEC Officials who were registering the large crowd using only one machine announced they had closed for the day leaving only the Radio Room machine allegedly meant to register only special people to continue to work but was out of reach for those on the long queues a situation some prospective registrants described as frustrating and an attempt to deliberately disenfranchise some group of people in Taraba State.
As Nigerians await an official announcement from INEC on whether or not the Voter’s registration will be extended beyond the 30th of June 2022 deadline, Tarabans especially those living in Jalingo have continued to suffer endlessly on long queues, say they are determined to get their PVCs to cast their votes in the forth coming polls.