Why Nigerians should participate in politics, by INEC

Nigerians have been told that democracy is a serious business and as such, they should participate actively in the democratic process.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Enugu State, Dr. Emeka Ononamadu gave the charge while addressing newsmen yesterday on the state of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise in his jurisdiction.

Ononomadu advised that people should participate actively instead of being aloof and positing that politics is a dirty business among other erroneous believes.

“Democracy is a serious business and Nigerians should take it serious and participate actively. People should not say that it does not concern them. Nigerians should make out time to vote on the day of election. If you want to vote, make out time to vote. Get involved in political parties and don’t say that politics is a dirty business,” he declared.

On the voter registration proper, Ononamadu said Nigerians should not panic because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would do everything possible to ensure that prospective voters vote. He assured the people that no eligible voter would be left out during the election period.

The REC disclosed that since the beginning of June, there had been upsurge in the number of intending registrants, and the commission had introduced more registration points to meet with the demand and deadline of eight days left for the exercise.

Ononamadu advised the people not to register twice as that would amount to double registration and render their voter’s card invalid. The REC, who said it was discovered that many people in Enugu State got involved in double registration, described the action as a negation of the exercise.

To dissuade people from indulging in double registration, he said: “We encourage citizens that have registered before, who can do it on their own, to check their voter status before attempting to register again since double registration is a violation of the law.

“We have embarked on renewed sensitisation to discourage citizens from engaging in double registration to save the time required for fresh registrants to register and avoid waste of scare public resources.”

The INEC official reassured the people that PVCs do not expire and dispelled the rumour that the cards of the people that registered in 2011 have now expired.

“INEC has regularly notified citizens that PVCs do not expire and as such there is no need for those who registered before to repeat the registration. Any rumour that PVCs of those that registered from 2011 expire is false and should be disregarded,” he said.

Ononomadu said that the commission learnt that because of the upsurge of registrants to beat the deadline, fraudsters have been defrauding people telling them to bring money to facilitate their registration.

“Security men have been mobilised to fish out those extorting people who want to register.”