New voter registration dominates front pages

Stories on the security concerns, ranging from the 2010 Independence Day and New Year eve bombings which shook the country, and the ‘political draughts’ played during party primaries at state and federal levels, dominated front pages in the first two weeks of the year.

The NATION newspaper captured the ‘troubled’ voter registration exercise in these headlines — ‘INEC blames hitches on Youth Corps members’ and ‘Voter registration: Why we recorded initial hitches”.

According to the NATION, a scapegoat emerged on Monday in the hitches galore at the registration of would-be voters. The scapegoats are members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), drafted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to man the DDC machines.

Their low knowledge of the computer was responsible for the hitches in the registration of voters, INEC said.

However, INEC chief, Professor Attahiru Jega, has said ‘it is a wrong assumption to use the challenges that we have faced in the first few days of a 15-day exercise to conclude that the exercise or the assignment is failing’. He added that ‘by the second day, we had already discovered what the problem was and we had developed a solution to the problem and we have started deploying the solution’.

NYSC is the mandatory one-year service that fresh university graduates must go through in states other than theirs before searching for jobs or further studies.

‘INEC queries manufacturers over malfunctioning DDC machines’, the SUN newspaper wrote on Monday, reporting that ‘Disappointed by the frequent malfunctioning of the DDC machines, INEC has lodged formal complaints with the three manufacturers of the machines.’

The decision by the Commission to complain to the manufacturers was as a result of the embarrassment faced by the Commission from members of the public who had condemned INEC roundly over the frustration they experienced in the process of registration.

The SUN had earlier reported the same story under the following headlines — ‘INEC machine rejects Obasanjo’s fingerprints’, ‘Why DDC machines reject fingerprints’ and ‘DDC machines not working because the products are bad –- Corps members’.

‘Complaints trail voters registration’, the VANGUARD wrote in its nation-wide coverage of the exercise, saying it was complaints galore from many eligible voters across the states of the federation who went home disappointed last Sunday when they could not be registered on the second day due to technical problems caused by the DDC machines.

Other papers captured the same story with these headlines — GUARDIAN: ‘Fears heighten as voters’ registration lapses continue’; TRIBUNE: ‘VOTER REGISTRATION: DDC machines frustrate Nigerians’ with the riders ‘OBJ’s fingerprints rejected’, ‘Mark, other Nigerians lament’, ‘No voter card, no pilgrimage – CAN’; The TRUST: ‘Sultan urges eligible voters to register’, ‘Put your house in order, Mark tells INEC’, ‘Senate postpones sitting for voters’ registration’, and ‘INEC deploys more machines, appeals for calm’; PUNCH: ‘INEC overrated corps members – Official’; and INDEPENDENT; ‘More problems trail voter registration’.

Still on the exercise, the papers reported the warnings from the INEC chief that (1) double registration would attract prosecution and (2) that parties without presidential candidates will not be on the ballot in the April elections.

Other stories this past week included the warning to organisers of crowd-pulling events that they need to issue terror watch alert and train their members and audience on counter terrorism intelligence following recent security threats, according to security experts.

Religious groups, Nigerian football community, wedding groups, schools, hotels, airports, markets, barracks, cinemas and beaches have been listed as vulnerable spots where innocent citizens could be targeted for terror attack by groups that want to make political statements and attract media attention.