Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja
The Independent National Electoral Commission Thursday has said its investigation of Governor Yahaya Bello’s double registration is still on course.
The Commission also explained why it decided to issue the Kogi State governor a temporary voter’s card.
INEC said it issued Bello a Temporary Voters Card because it does not want to infringe on his fundamental human rights.
Kogi Resident Electoral Commissioner Prof. James Akpa reiterated to newsmen at a stakeholders’ meeting in his office yesterday that the double registration allegations against Bello was still pending for investigation and is far from over.
He, however, said the allegation was not strong enough to deny the governor his right to seek for transfer of his voter’s card and stressed that “INEC record, for now, has not shown that the governor did double registration, until a permanent card is issued, which will invariably indicate it in the INEC database.”
In 2014, Bello registered in Wuse, Abuja, and later did another registration at the Government House, Lokoja, in 2017, which led to the dismissal of two INEC staff and forceful retirement of another senior staff.
However, last week, INEC issued a Temporary Voters Card to the governor in his Okene home town, a situation political watchers see as double-dealing on the part of the Commission.
But Prof. Akpa said the integrity of the Commission could not be questioned in this matter as the it was only following due process and has not thrown away the allegation against the governor.
The REC expressed worry over the apathy of voters in the state. He said so far, 202,289 voter’s cards are still uncollected and that, as at February 27, 176,866 new voters have so far registered representing 90,553 males and 86,313 females while 7,169 have so far sought for transfer of their cards and 9,400 cards replaced.