WITH the concurrence of the Senate, the ongoing voters’ compilation exercise, which began on January 15 and initially scheduled to terminate on January 29 would be extended for four weeks.
In essence, Nigerians who are yet to be listed as voters would have the whole of February to do so.

The House of Representatives, which resumed from its five-week recess, yesterday, in its first sitting of 2011, amended Section 9(5) of the Electoral Act, 2010 in a record 25 minutes to grant the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, a window to drag on with the exercise to the end of February.

This came as senators reacted angrily to difficulties being experienced by Nigerians in the on going registration of voters and ordered the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to appear before it today to explain the reasons behind the recurring hitches ranging from slow to rejection of finger prints by the Direct Data Capture, DDC, machines; inadequate machines and cases of theft of the machines by goons believed to be working for politicians.

The Senate also ordered the Minister of Education to order the reopening of schools that were closed down nationwide as a result of the registration exercise “as soon as possible.”
Yesterday’s decision of the Senate followed a motion moved by Senator Victor Ndoma_Egaba on the problems being experienced by Nigerians in the voters’ registration exercise.
Meanwhile a pressured Jega has threatened to throw in the towel if pressures became unbearable just as it emerged that Avante, one of the companies that won contracts to supply the DDC machines, has defaulted and contributed to the prevailing hitches.
House adjourns for two weeks
The INEC amendment and the need to commence work on the Budget, made the House to swiftly adjourn for another two weeks, while its 85 Committees will work on the Appropriation Act, 2011. The amendment, Speaker Dimeji Bankole urged, should be promptly served the Senate for concurrence and assent by the President.
Chief Kay Odunaro, Chief Press Secretary to Bankole, said the extension was to allow all eligible Nigerians, even those living abroad, to partake in the exercise and to give the INEC ample time to do a tidy job.
Odunaro said: “With expected concurrence from the Senate INEC now has enough time to perfect its act and ensure that no eligible voter is disenfranchised. This will also enable our brothers and sisters in Diaspora to come home and register to effect changes in the polity. Already some Diaspora groups and individuals are in the country for the voters’ registration exercise.”
Briefing journalists later, spokesman of the House, Hon. Eseme Eyiboh, said the lawmakers suspended plenary because members also needed to register and mobilise their constituents to do same.

Sponsor of the Bill, Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business, Mr. Ita Enang, said INEC could not extend the deadline unless Section 9(5) of the 2010 Act was amended.
Section 9(5) of the extant Act required that all voters’ registration processes must stop not later than 60 days to the commencement of the general elections, and by that provision, INEC would have only two days extension possibility since it fixed April 2, 2011 for the first election on the timetable released late last year.
The section reads: “The registration of voters, updating and revision of the register of voters under this section shall stop not later than 60 days before any election covered by this Act.”
But in the new amendment, Enang said the 60 days should be deleted and substituted by 30 days, adding that despite several complaints by potential voters, INEC could not, by the provision of the Electoral Law, extend the deadline beyond the specified time in the Act.

“By this amendment, INEC can now extend the deadline for maybe, another four weeks,” Bankole declared, as he announced the adjournment of plenary.
Senate summons Jega
Yesterday’s decision of the Senate followed a motion moved by Sen Victor Ndoma_Egaba on the problems being experienced by Nigerians in the on_going registration exercise.

Coming under order 42 and 52 of Senate Standing Rules, Ndoma-Egba, the Deputy Senate Leader, feared that the widespread problems trailing the voters’ listing exercise could jeopardize the 2011 polls.
He said the failures so far recorded in the exercise fell short of Nigerians’ expectation and the billions of Naira collected by Prof Jega to produce a credible voters’ register.
Ndoma Egba said: “There has been widespread report of all sorts of problems. Several registration centres in my constituency and nationwide have not received the DDC machine. The NYSC people are boycotting the exercise for non-payment of allowances. The consequences of all these problems are that the process of free, fair and credible election is likely to be undermined because substantial proportion of people will not be registered.”

Senators complain
Ndoma_Egba’s motion opened a floodgate of complaints from senators who without exception condemned the conduct of the exercise, noting that the high investment of confidence and trust on the INEC chairman appeared to have been misplaced.
Deputy President of the Senate, Sen Ike Ekweremadu, lamented what he said was the double jeopardy Nigerians were exposed to as a result of the shoddy registration exercise and the forceful closure of schools, noting: “We are suffering a double jeopardy. Schools are closed and we are not getting the expected results from the voters’ registration exercise.”

Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Sen Olorunimbe Mamora, stressed the need to amend the Electoral Act to accommodate the challenges raised by the difficulty in registering eligible voters. He condemned the closure of schools for the exercise saying this amounted to “denial of rights of children” which he said was unnecessary.
Sen Ahmed Lawan wondered why “it is only the chairman of INEC that believes that the exercise is a success while all Nigerians think otherwise. We have no choice but to amend the Electoral Act to allow for more time to capture more people. I am actually worried that one-man-one vote may no longer count by the way the INEC chairman is going.”

Senate President, David Mark, expressed worries that the commission might disappoint the Nigerians who were determined to make their votes count.
While urging the Senate Committee on INEC to ensure that all eligible voters were registered, Mark said: “INEC has to register in the next few days, millions of Nigerians who are very enthusiastic because of our policy of one_man one_vote. Can they achieve that? I am generally very optimistic but I am afraid the on_going registration exercise does not give me much confidence.
The teething problems now appear to be permanent and they are not going away. As we speak today, there are so many LGAs without DDC machines and nobody knows when the machines will get to those destinations.”

Jega threatens to quit
Meanwhile Jega said, yesterday, that he would resign if there was too much pressure on him concerning the 2011 general election.
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC (Hausa Service) monitored in Lagos, he said: “No one has so far approached me with any impossible demand yet.
I pray that such would never happen. Since the day I assumed office, no one has asked me to do anything against my wish and I hope it will never happen because if I am asked to do the wrong thing, God knows I will never do it. I will never do anything that will make me go against the Code of Conduct and that is why I accepted this job.

“I swore with the Holy Qur’an that I will do the job sincerely and truthfully and there is nothing that will make me do otherwise. I assure the people that INEC as an institution would never compromise. We will organise a credible election.”
He insisted that no one would be allowed to manipulate the election, warning that anyone who tried it would be prosecuted.

Avante yet to supply DDC machines
Eleven days after the commencement of the voters’ registration exercise, Vanguard can authoritatively report that one of the contracted companies to supply the DCC machines, Avante International, is yet to fully supply its own quota.
The implication of this is that the INEC may not record a clean sheet in the exercise because Avante’s 22,000 DDC machines were taken into consideration INEC’s plan for a successful voters’ registration outing.

The DDC machines contracts were awarded to three companies: Zinox Technologies Ltd, a Nigerian ICT firm, which got a total contract of $141,680,000 (N21.25 billion) to supply 80,000 units; Haier Electrical Appliances Corp Ltd was to supply 30,000 units at $1,699. 60 per unit while Avante International Technologies, an American company, was to supply 22,000 units at $37,013,900 (N5.36 billion).

However, impeccable sources at INEC said that while Zinox and Haier had fully supplied their quotas, Avante was yet to supply up to 30 percent of the 22,000 units.
The source confessed that Nigerians would have faced tougher challenges in the exercise if other contractors did not supply their quotas on time. INEC had announced that it intended to register an estimated 70 million voters at 120,000 centres across the country before the registration period ends January 29.

Why machines are slow

INEC had adopted a Linux software technology, which experts say is slower than Oracle and many others and calibrated it to achieve high quality finger print. But that led to slowing down of scanning and entire registration process in many centres at the beginning of the process.

However, Vanguard also reliably gathered that the commission last week upgraded the software to 1.8 version which is higher and faster and the problems so experienced, eased off considerably.

Although major suppliers of the DDC machines, like Zinox Technologies said it had no business with the software that powers the scanning of finger prints, they have, however, deployed two engineers in each of the 36 states and Abuja in anticipation of the teething problems with the new DDC technology.

The company also said the cost of these 74 support staff was not part of the contract but a patriotic gesture to ensure that the DDC technology did not overwhelm the INEC operatives.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/01/voters-registration-reps-okay-4-weeks-extension/

shouldn't there be stricter deadlines? and when is the actual election date?

I think that's d most reasonable thing to do now to cover up for wasted time
www.naturekay..com

Had d national house of assembly passed d electoral bill ontime without scheming on how to manipulate the system to benefit themselves we wont be having this crises and hick ups frm d entire registration process. They spent 3&1/2yrs in d house busy inflating their salaries and sharing money here and there. They dint address d electoral issues even when our late president admited to d fact dat d election dat ushered him in as president was a sham, if we had responsible and responsive men of intergrity in both d upper and lower national house of assembly dis issues wld ve been among d first 2b addressed within d first quater of their first yr in d house but they became contractors rather than legislators and when there tenure was almost elapsing they started making laws which they still end up amending, re-amend, re-mend, mend and eventually confuse themselves, the system and every1 else. The time frame left for inec to do a thorough job was shot. Inec chairman dint knw d task ahead of him,he tot it was dat simplistic and he can manage d challenges dat might throw up during d registration and elections proper. What we all expect inec to do in 5months is actually a 2yrs job. No thanks to the legislative arm for failing to do what they ought to do rightly and untime too.

4 weeks extension is very much ok

it's one big FARCE.