INEC working on template that allows voters register in its offices –Director

INEC Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Mr Oluwole Osase-Uzzi, made the disclosure on Thursday in Abuja at an Election Results Analysis Training for Political Correspondents organised by Election Monitor (EM) an NGO.

He said the template was still going through planning process.

He added that if the process is finalised, it would enable Nigerians who just attained the age of 18 to walk into any INEC offices and register without necessarily waiting for the time Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) is conducted.

Osase-Uzzi said the template would also take care of eligible voters living far from INEC office.

He however explained that the commission would still conduct CVR periodically to capture the details of eligible voters.

Meanwhile, Mr Abiodun Ajijola, National Coordinator, Election Monitor, has called on media organisations to lay greater emphasis on analysis of election results.

In his presentation at the training, Ajijola argued that analysing election results would give valuable insight into the veracity of the results by observing and assessing trends, deviations and inconsistencies.

He said that media coverage of elections in Nigeria would offer tremendous service to the electorate if it lays greater emphasis on analytical election coverage.

“It will help to improve public knowledge about elections, as well help to reduce or avoid election violence that usually lead to loss of lives and properties.

“If proper election analysis was done and disseminated across all forms of media, some of the people trying to create unrest and violence during election period will have failed.

“They would have failed because their message will have been drowned out by empirical analysis which may have actually saved some lives,’’ he said.

The coordinator said that since 1999, majority of the elections conducted had resulted in dissatisfied parties (usually those who lost) taken their case to the court for final determination.

He said: “most media houses have also weighed in their opinions of the credibility of elections in Nigeria, usually leveraging on external analysts.

“However it is very rare to see these analysts making cogent points based on data analysis of the election results.

“This leads to arguing and people taking sides based on who sounds more convincing as opposed to credible figures, facts and data which are available and will make discussions more convincing.

“For this reason election monitor believes there is an urgent need to provide this capacity to journalists involved in assessing electoral outcomes.’’

Ajijola stressed the need for the media to develop the data analysis skills of their political correspondents.