The Director, Strategy Planning of the Tony Nwoye Campaign Organisation, Jude Onyeka, on Thursday responded to INEC’s claim that voters who failed to confirm their names on the displayed register were to blame for their missing names on the register, disenfranchising on Election Day.
Mr Onyeka who was speaking on Sunrise daily, from Channels Television’s Abuja studio said the electoral umpire is to be held responsible for the names which were missing from the register because the updated register presented to political parties three days before election was not the same as the one presented initially.
INEC, which had blamed the issue of missing names of voters who had failed to confirm their names during display, also absolved itself from any blame by saying it had presented a revised voters register to political parties three days before the election.
Speaking on Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, the spokesman for the commission, Mr. Kayode Idowu, had explained that a glitch in the system necessitated an upgrade in the voters register as the system cut out 2 years from voters’ ages.
The voters register was compiled in 2011 but the system was not updated hence in 2013, the same age voters filled was the same on the register which was to be used for the Anambra election.
However, Mr Onyeka said the revised register was presented too late as there wasn’t enough time to send duplicate copies to all the wards, for voters to verify their names, three days before election.
It took the party one week to print and circulate the first register INEC presented 30 days before the election.
Onyeka claimed that the updated register was not the same as the first but asked if he had raised any alarm or complain to INEC, he said, there was no time to carry out a thorough check and they were busy canvassing for votes.
He alleged that up to 60 per cent of voters were disenfranchised on the day of election.
A lot of voters who saw their names on the voters register, which was displayed (in some polling stations) prior to the election, could not find it on the register on Election Day.
He averred that the election was not free and fair owing to a ‘massive disenfranchisement of voters.”
The election, he said, was a ‘monumental failure.’
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