Ostensibly to ensure that all eligible voters register in the ongoing registration exercise, the Abia State government has declared today as work-free day for all its civil servants. In the same vein, all markets in the state would also not open for business next Tuesday to allow traders to register.
The state commissioner of information and strategy, A.C.B. Agbazuere, who disclosed this during the post executive council meeting press briefing at the Government House in Umuahia, also said any public servant that did not register for a voters card would not be paid their January 2011 salary.
"The public holiday was part of government's mobilisation strategy to ensure that everybody was given the opportunity to register without having an excuse," Mr. Agbazuere said.
He said that the task of enlightening the public on the importance of the voter registration should not be the exclusive duty of the government and its agencies, but all stakeholders, to enable people vote for the leaders of their choice in the April elections and subsequent ones.
Visits to the various registration centres showed a remarkable enthusiasm by potential voters to register, as long queues were noticed in all the polling booths visited and people waited patiently to be registered.
The initial hiccups in the exercise appear to have gradually eased out, giving way to faster registration, as it took an average of seven minutes to complete the registration of one person in most of the centres monitored yesterday.
At Umuafor village hall, in Obingwa local government area, where about 14 persons were registered on Tuesday and 15 the next day because of the problems of the Direct Data Capture machines, about 40 had registered at 12 noon yesterday when NEXT visited the unit.
Improved registration.
It was the same report of improved performance at Umuokahia, Anwa/Amaolewe, and Umunwokoma units where those who had written down their names and left to come back much later on came to see that those who waited had long been registered.
The Registration Officers in the units said the improvements were as a result of the upgrading of the softwares they were using, and expressed optimism that at that rate they might meet the deadline given by INEC for the exercises.
On the fate of those who were registered without their fingerprints captured, they said that INEC was aware of it and that their registration was valid, and advised those involved not to panic or go for another registration as it would amount to double registration which would be rejected by the computer.
The commissioner revealed that the government has approved the return of 22 secondary schools taken over by the military government in the early 1970s to their rightful owners. The return of the schools, which did not include primary schools, would be in phases and he urged those whose own were not included in the current batch to exercise patience...
"The decision was the outcome of a committee set up by the government to look into the matter, which has been a contending issue as Christian groups have been demanding for the release of their schools," he said.
Mr. Agbazuere said the owners of the released schools would be expected to meet some conditions before the schools are finally handed to them, adding that those who cannot meet the conditions might forfeit the release.
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