The road to leadership is not easy, neither the led (masses) do find it easy to entrench a leader of their choice. In Nigeria today, when it comes to matters of elections, the civic responsibilities on the part of those who choose to exercise their voting right is much more demanding than what is ordinary supposed to be. Although, every phase of life comes with its own challenges, it is one’s ability to harness the challenges for the benefit and progress of the system that matters most. For example, the changes in leadership of INEC as well as some of its electoral policies are well intended for the efficiency of the election system in Nigeria. That does not really mean that Nigerians are stress free in performing their pre-election duties even though they are much more tasking on the part of the masses.
On the other hand, while Nigerian government is making enormous efforts through INEC to ensure a hitch free election in 2011, there should be proper as well as fair distribution in the resources/machinery, not only to reduce the suffering of the masses but also to improve the condition of service of those helping government to carry out a special assignment. For example, the distribution of INEC registration machines in Kaduna metropolis is generally uneven. There are more INEC registration centres in business oriented areas than can be found in residential areas. This is going to have a bad precedence on the out come of the forth coming elections. The simple reason is that, movement of people is highly restricted during election days, and those who register in centres close to their business areas will be prevented from reaching their voting centres.
Although, the INEC boss has consistently emphasized the need for people to register in centres close to them (their residential areas), the pressure of registering in some residential areas has pushed so many people to areas far away from their main place of stay. In areas like Goningora, Ungwan-Romi, Sabon-Tasha and some parts of Trikania, people generally wake 3:00 am to queue for numbers. The population of people in these areas does not in every way, matches machinery put in place by INEC to successfully tackle the pre-election demands of people within these areas. Couple with the issue of slow registration, one wonders if three weeks is enough to solve the problem.
At the moment, it stands to reason that the confusion in the INEC registration has not been well resolved. The base line is that, everyone who registers is an intended voter, but the current circumstances in the INEC registration, pronounce limited chances or opportunities for the registered citizens to exercise their voting right. Least people just register for registering sake.
is expected to bring certain challenges on the masses.
*** Art in Disguise ***
