The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Monday, said it had registered another 123,900 new voters in the recently concluded Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) in Gombe State.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Prof. Istifanus Dafwang, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe.
He said eligible voters turned out in many of the ward registration centres to register in the first three days of the CVR.
The REC thanked stakeholders in the state for their cooperation with the commission during the exercise.
He added that although the registration was supposed to be conducted at the ward collation centres, INEC had to conduct the registration in areas known as “zero polling units.’’
Dafwang described the zero polling units as units where cards were not printed for the voters during the 2011 registration.
He said the use of the zero polling units was due to technical hitches arising from transferring names from the computers to printers.
“We had to organise registration for those polling units specifically and that meant that the initial considerations were not comprehensive enough to cover the areas on the first day.” he said.
The resident electoral commissioner added that by the end of the first five days, the registration officers were idle in majority of the registration centres “except in few places in Gombe metropolis where people were still coming out to register.’’
He cited Pantami ward registration centre in Gombe town, where three more machines were still provided for the exercise.
He said he had to personally supervise the registration in that centre “because our assessment is that many of these people were coming in to register again due to misunderstanding which unfortunately some politicians presented to them.
“Some politicians had told people that they had to register again even though they had cards.’’
He noted that the commission captured more than 90 per cent of those who were supposed to be registered and appealed to those who registered to exercise patience as their cards were being processed.