Voters’ Registration: Ministry, Centre To Campaign For Mass Participation

The Ebonyi Ministry of Information and Orientation, and the Federal Information Resource Centre are to campaign for mass participation in the forthcoming voters’ registration exercise.

The collaboration was agreed on when a delegation from the Centre paid a courtesy visit to Chief Egwu Chima, the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, on Saturday in Abakaliki.

Chima said the initiative would justify the theme of the Conference of Commissioners for Information held recently in Sokoto.

“We were enjoined to ensure that the message of achieving the desired electoral reforms, which is one of the cardinal points of this administration’s seven-point agenda, is effectively propagated in our various states.

“The achievement of a credible voters’ register is the first step towards ensuring that the country gets it right in electoral matters as the 2011 general elections approach,” he said.

The commissioner said the initiative was in line with the attitudinal change policy of the state government, noting that participation in the exercise would enable the people to elect leaders that would bring dividends of democracy to their doorsteps.

He promised that the state government would collaborate with the centre to ensure active participation of people at the grass-roots level.

Mr Mike Uzor, South-East zonal coordinator of the centre, said it decided to assist INEC in propagating the message because of the inherent apathy of the electorate to electoral matters.

He said the people would be enlightened on the need to register at their places of residence and not at their work or business places because of the restrictions usually experienced on election days.

A similar collaboration had earlier been struck by the ministry and NOA office Ebonyi to encourage participation in the registration exercise.