A mild drama occurred in Abeokuta on Sunday as former President Olusegun Obasanjo had a dose of the frustration many Nigerians face in getting registered for the April general elections.
He had arrived his Ward 11 Ita-Eko, Abeokuta at 11.53am, but ended not registering at the ward as his fingerprints were rejected several times by the Direct Data Capturing machine in use.
It was reported that when the DDC machine rejected Obasanjo’s fingerprints, the Ogun State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr, Martins Okunfolami, and other INEC officials present made arrangement for another machine to be used.
When the second failed, the INEC officials, out of desperation, accompanied Obasanjo to another registration point in the ward. But at the point, the DDC machine malfunctioned. When all hopes appeared dashed, the former President got up and tried to leave, saying he would come back on his return from the overseas trip. But apparently sensing the implication of Obasanjo’s failure to register, the INEC officials made telephone calls repeatedly while pleading with the former President to give them more time for an expert to come to the registration point.
The expert eventually arrived around 12.45pm and had Obasanjo registered 20 minutes after.
Speaking after, Obasanjo, who did not show any sign of annoyance, described the incident as the “hiccup of a new process.”
It is no news that the registration process is off on a very slow start and in as much as we do not anticipate any resident electoral commissioner coming to our rescue as was the case of OBJ, what do you think is the way forward? Share your personal experiences about the ongoing registration process.
No comments:
Post a Comment