Barring any changes, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) may anytime from now announced an extension in the on going registration of voters.

Chairman of the commission, Prof Attahiru Jega who made the disclosure when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters said the possibility of extending the time frame for the ongoing voters registration exercise would be announced next week.

“If it is absolutely necessary for us to extend the time, we will not hesitate to do so. But we have to do an assessment on whether such extension should be nationwide, or only in the areas where the exercise is starting late.”

He noted the progress so far made on the hitches-ridden exercise, and efforts to address the challenges, however, agreeing that as much as 2,273 polling units were yet to get the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines as at yesterday.

According to him, there have been significant improvement in the speed of per capita registration in the last few days, as according to him, adjustments had been made to the fingerprints scanners, which he said were initially set at a high sensitive aperture, specifically meant for forensic analysis in criminal investigation, and was slowing the process down due to multiple rejections, but that such was not necessary for voters registration.

“Over eighty per cent of the machines in the field have already been reached and they are being re-configured and that is why in the last two days many are saying there is a remarkable improvement in the registration,” Jega stated.

He disclosed that out of the 132,000 DDCs ordered by the commission through three firms; Messrs Zinox Technologies Ltd, Haier Electrical Appliances Corp Ltd (a Chinese company) and Avante International Technology (an American firm), only 115,000 were delivered as last Monday, but quickly pointed out that the only defaulting firm (Avante) was expected to deliver 5,000 units last night, and the balance of 11,000 units today.

Zinox was contracted to supply 80,000 units of the DDCs, while Haier was offered to supply 30,000 units, and Avante 22,000. Jega explained that some polling units could not get the DDCs because while Messrs Zinox Technologies Ltd and Haier Electrical Appliances Corp. Ltd, delivered on promise, Avante delivered only 5,500 units as at last Saturday when the exercise commenced.

While enumerating the various hitches faced by the exercise, Jega admitted that the ad-hoc staff did not get the requisite training as there were no enough funds to provide the comprehensive training required for the exercise.

“We wish we had more money for more days of training including hands on the machines. I know when I say more money every Nigerian now laugh because people say that we have already being given too much money, but frankly we could have done with more time of training because the more people are trained, then the better,” he said.

He insisted that any would be voter who has obtained a voter’s card without fingerprints being captured risked disenfranchisement, and advising that such persons to bear the inconveniencies of repeating the process, he warned all offenders by way of multiple registration and all other related offences would be prosecuted.

“One of the major challenges we have on the field is that our officers when confronted with long queues took decisions to register without finger prints and that is wrong. We have devised guidelines now and have informed all our officials on the field, whoever has been registered has to go back and re-register again and all the ten fingers must be registered.

“It’s unfortunate that they have done this and are causing additional inconveniences to the people but what is worth doing is worth doing well. The reason for capturing ten fingers is to make it near impossible for double registration, only the possibility of one duplication in five million voters. So we have to go back to that otherwise the moment we register people without fingerprint, it creates additional problem of checking double registration.

“People have also discovered that there is no way they can do multiple registration on one machine, they now go to another polling unit to register but we have mechanism in place to check double registration at the state level. We do it local government by local government across the state. Whoever does double registration will be caught, we will remove it and we will have evidence to prosecute them subsequently because even if you do registration with different names it will still be your photograph.

“We are using this opportunity to also warn Nigerians because we have information from some states that some politicians are using vehicles to move people from place to place to do double registration. The security agencies are already helping us to apprehend these people and we will prosecute them because clearly, it is electoral offence that they have committed,” Jega said.

Earlier in his remarks, Chairman of the House Committee on Electoral Matters, Hon. Musa Sarki explained that the invitation of Jega was necessitated by the several concerns expressed by Nigerians on the technical hitches experienced from the takeoff point of the exercise.

Adar said Nigerians were greatly disappointed owing to the huge expectation on INEC, saying that the committee wanted to know the possibility of registering all eligible Nigerians within the two weeks stipulated by the commission.