Complaints trail voter registration exercise

Five days into a long overdue voter registration exercise, a shortage of materials and allegations of fraud and malpractice were among the complaints that have been reported from various parts of Nigeria. In many registration centres in the country's biggest city and commercial capital, Lagos, intending voters were turned away because of a shortage of registration materials. Local newspapers on Tuesday reported similar complaints from different parts of the country. However, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said the shortages were deliberately induced by the electoral body "to avoid politicians hoarding the registration materials". Its spokesman, Olusegun Adeogun, said additional materials would only be released to registration officials where requisitions had been verified and found to be genuine. There were also media reports that politicians in some parts of the country had started buying voters' cards, and that under-age people were being registered by officials who were not adhering strictly to the stipulated rules. On Monday, the opposition Alliance for Democracy (AD) accused the ruling People's Democratic Party of indulging in malpractices aimed at securing unfair advantage in the elections scheduled for next year. The party said in a statement that there were cases where registration centres had been moved without notice, and others where they were closed before the official time. Such irregularities "can mar the entire exercise and defeat its very purpose," it added. The registration exercise, due to run to 21 September, is intended to pave the way for local elections that were to have been held in April but were deferred for lack of an up-to-date voting register. It is an important step towards general elections scheduled to take place early next year - the first since the election of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 ended more than 15 years of military rule in Africa's most populous country.