Voter registration ends amid complaints

The registration of voters for next year's general elections ended on Sunday with huge numbers of people saying they were left out, despite a one-day extension of the exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Chaotic scenes built up on Saturday in many centres across the country where there was an inadequate supply of registration materials for the number of intending voters. In response, INEC announced the release of 2.7 million extra registration form. It had initially released materials to cover an estimated 60 million eligible voters. Late on Saturday evening, when the registration exercise was due to draw to a close, the commission broadcast a statement on radio and television announcing its extension to Sunday. However, many officials did not show up at registration centres on Sunday and large numbers of potential voters remained unregistered. "We don't believe there is shortage of materials," INEC chairman Abel Guobadia said on state television on Sunday night. "We have used figures from the National Population Commission, which gave the population of eligible voters as 59 million. We rounded up at 60 million and even printed 70 million cards, 10 million more," he added. Guobadia said his commission was baffled by complaints of the non-availability of registration forms, lending credence to allegations that unscrupulous politicians had connived with lower ranking electoral officials to divert registration materials. Some observers reported that, in many centres, officials either appeared to sign up too many people too quickly or were registering under-aged people. Officials of the electoral body warned that irregular registrations would be invalidated when it gets down to processing the data for Nigeria's first computerised electoral register. Guobadia said those who were unable to register this time around would have another opportunity to do so early next year, before the general elections, which would be the first since the polls that ended more than 15 years of military rule ended in Africa's most populous country in 1999. However, people not registered in the current exercise will not be able to vote in municipal elections due to be held before the end of this year. Those polls, to elect new local governments for Nigeria's 120 million people, were due to have been held in April but were deferred in the absence of an up-to-date voting register.