The Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday said it had registered about 54.9 million people as at January 31.
It said in a statement in Abuja that it projected that 62 million Nigerians would be registered by the close of the exercise on Saturday (tomorrow). The exercise started on January 15.
The statement by Mr. Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, was made available to journalists on Thursday just as policemen in Oyo State found Direct Data Capturing machines in a forest close to a predominantly Fulani settlement in Saki West Local Government Area.
INEC, however, explained that daily nationwide average had “lowered to 3.2 million as against about 4.3 million per day earlier recorded.”
It said that it expected that the daily average would decline even further as more people get registered.
Idowu had earlier on Thursday told the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja that the additional N6.6bn needed for the extended period (seven days) of the voter registration was part of the N87bn budget meant for the entire exercise.
INEC had on January 26 requested the extra vote to complete the exercise. But Idowu dismissed insinuations that the N6.6bn request was in addition to the N87bn already received by the electoral body.
“The money that was budgeted earlier on, much of it was for capital projects. By budgeting procedures, if there is any recurrent expenditure, you have to appropriate fresh money for it regardless of what you have left in your capital vote,” he said.
Idowu added that the budgeting procedure did not allow for the spending of funds earmarked for capital projects.
The INEC chairman’s spokesman also said the commission would pay additional N14,000 to each corps member participating as ad-hoc staff in the exercise.
Idowu, who added that an additional N1,000 would be paid to them as daily transportation, argued that there was no reason for them to threaten to boycott the exercise.
Some corps members had threatened to boycott the exercise in various parts of the country over what they described as delay in making payments to them.
He added that INEC initially paid N10,000 out of N30,000 originally approved for each of those engaged in the exercise for two weeks.
“Just yesterday (Wednesday), INEC paid N10,000 out of the outstanding N20,000 and N7,000 upfront meant for transportation to cover the one-week extended time,’’ Idowu explained.
He assured that the commission would pay the balance of N10,000 incurred in the first stage and the N14,000 for the one week extension, at the end of the exercise.
Meanwhile, the discovery of a DDC machine in a forest in Saki West LGA caused a stir in the area as residents went on the rampage.
Eyewitnesses said it took the quick intervention of policemen to restore normalcy to the area.
Unconfirmed report said that 10 people including two members of the National Youth Service Corps were arrested in connection with the discovery.
They were said to be in the custody of Saki West Police Station at the time of filing this report.
When contacted on the telephone, the spokesman of the Oyo State Police Command, Mr. Tunji Ajimuda, said he was yet to receive a signal on the matter.
Also, the spokesman of INEC in the state, Mr. Ayodele Folami, said he was yet to get report from the Electoral Officer in charge of Saki West.
Folami said, “Necessary action will be taken as soon as the report arrives. Presently, we are not aware because we are still awaiting reports from our electoral officer from Saki West.
“Since the incident happened today (Thursday), you don’t expect us to know what happened until we get reports.”
But a chieftain of the Accord Party in the area, Mr. Jimoh West, confirmed the development to journalists.
“When people alerted us about the DDC machine in the forest, we went to report at the police station. We were accompanied by policemen to where it (machine) was (found) in the forest,” West said.
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