The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday explained the reason behind the registration of underage people by registration officers in Kano and other states. The Director of Publicity and Voter Education, Mr. Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi while appearing on Kakaaki, an AIT programme said they were registered because the lives of registration officers were threatened by some members of the community.
Oluwole was reacting to the circulation on the social media of pictures and videos of children registering and voting in some parts of the North,
“I agree that it is the responsibility of the registration officer to do that (refuse to register underage persons), but there are times that circumstances are such that where there is present and clear danger that he risks being assaulted or being killed, I think it will be unreasonable to expect him not to succumb to the pressure. But we encourage them to report immediately they get out of that dangerous zone.”
He explained that the Commission got the report from some Corps members taking part in the registration exercise. He stressed that some parents who came along with their children claimed that they were above 12 and insisted that they must be registered.
“Even to the untrained eye, that child doesn’t look more than 15, but in such circumstances, you cannot argue too much with them. The law says the registration officer is entitled to act on some kind of identification or birth certificate or proof of age.
But very often, they are resisted, especially when there are lots of people there. They are challenged in a charged atmosphere and they are there without any protection. Many of them are there in strange communities which they don’t know anything about. So, there is undue pressure on them to register at this point.”
He assured that measures have been adopted by the Commission to weed out the irregularities in the register.
“It is not a complex process, you display the voter register and people come there. That is in addition to the fact that the registration officer can refuse anybody registration. But we don’t expect people to risk their lives for what is essentially a simple patriotic service.
But if they get away with that (getting registered) and the report is not taken, the second opportunity is when the register is displayed. The best opportunity is where higher officials physically look at each register as much as they can and those who are clearly not qualified are removed. So, it is a three-pronged process and there are different stages.”
