By Kamsi Anayo, Awka
Less than five days to the end of the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), some centres are still crowded in Awka, Anambra capital.
The exercise is ending on July 31 nationwide, prospective registrants were seen in their numbers waiting to be attended ti by INEC officials at some centres in Awka on Wednesday,
The centres visited were: Unizik, Ekwueme Square, INEC office Amawbia and INEC state headquarters, Awka.
Mrs Udoka Nwoye, a prospective registrant said at a centre within the INEC state headquarters Awka that she came for registration since 9am and was yet to be attended to as at 3pm.
Nwoye complained that the network being used was too slow, saying that that caused the delay being experienced.
Another prospective registrant, Emmanuel Chikelu said he turned 18 years at the end of June and was encouraged by his parents to come for the registration.
He said, today is my third attempt to be registered, but each day I come the number of people seeking to be registered continues to increase.
The young man appealed to the commission to create more centres to enable those coming for the exercise to be attended to before the July ending deadline.
Mr George Edeani, Head of Department, (HOD) Voters Education and Publicity (VEP), INEC Anambra in a reaction said that the commission was committed towards registering everyone who came to be registered.
Edeani said preliminary observations made showed that more number of the people coming were younger.
He however declined to speak on the possibility of setting up more registration centres in the state, adding that the power lies with the Commission’s headquarters.
On the issue of poor network, he said that Cloud network, the Internet Service Provider serving the commission was having too much pressure.
He explained that it was for the pressure that the system sometimes experience delay, and advised the people to be patient.
Edeani reminded those who already completed and are issued with the temporary voters card to note that they are still required to get their PVC.
“Temporary voters card will not qualify you to vote, anyone with the card should be mindful of the fact that they must come for their PVC once it is ready to enable him or her to vote next year”, he said.