Following weeks of complaints about problems with online voter registration, the Independent National Electoral Commission said on Tuesday that the portal had been closed.
Yahaya Bello, the Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Federal Capital Territory, made the explanation at a press conference in Abuja ahead of Saturday’s Youth Vote Count Mega Music Concert.
Despite the commission’s warning last month that online registration will be suspended on May 30, Bello wondered why Nigerians are still flocking to the commission’s website.
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People who complained that online registration was no longer working should have sought explanation before jumping to such a hasty conclusion, according to him.
He said, “If you are talking about online registration, I will say it is very effective. What happened is that it has been suspended. Those who applied online have been captured and are in our records before we suspended it.”
This is even as he stated that the Permanent Voters Cards of people who are just completing their registration may not be ready until the first month of 2023.
“The online registration was suspended to allow us in INEC to prepare the PVC while the physical process continues.
“Those we saw in long queues today were those who didn’t seize the opportunity to register early. They are rushing today because of the sensitization. Otherwise, we would have been following this thing by sequence,” he said.
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Bello, who sounded a note of warning at the event on Tuesday, said anybody just registering cannot immediately collect them until after the end of the whole exercise.
“I want to make it clear that the PVCs you see people collecting now are from 2011, 2019 and last year. Those who are participating now till June 30 won’t be able to collect theirs now.
“It is a process that will allow us to print these cards. The collection of the PVCs will not commence until the first month of 2023 and it will be done in person, not by proxies,” he stated.
The Youth Vote Count Mega Music Concert is a joint event put together by INEC in collaboration with YIAGA Africa and the European Union.
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