Dissatisfied with the conduct of the recent Permanent Voters Card registration in his council area, Chairman of Qua’an Pan Local Government area of Plateau State, Hon. Theophilus Dakas-Chan, at the weekend led the people of the local government including members of the executive council, the legislative council as well as the traditional council to INEC office in Jos, the state capital, to protest the exercise.

According to Hon Dakas-Chan, “the protest became necessary to defend people of the local government from been disenfranchise in 2015 general elections”.

Dissatisfied with the conduct of the recent Permanent Voters Card registration in his council area, Chairman of Qua’an Pan Local Government area of Plateau State, Hon. Theophilus Dakas-Chan, at the weekend led the people of the local government including members of the executive council, the legislative council as well as the traditional council to INEC office in Jos, the state capital, to protest the exercise.

According to Hon Dakas-Chan, “the protest became necessary to defend people of the local government from been disenfranchise in 2015 general elections”.

The council chairman, who was received by the state INEC Resident Commissioner, Hon. Habu Zarma, said: “People of the local government had overwhelmed me with their protest over their inability to get their permanent cards or be captured in the continuous voters registration exercise. I had no option but to lead them here.

“The continuous registration of voters is not working in my local government; it was successful only in one ward out of the eleven wards in the local government. The computers brought for the exercise are old and not functional; the batteries are weak, the scanners are not working. In short, it was total failure in our local government”.

He added: “The way the exercise is going here if government insists on conducting the exercise in six days, 90 percent of eligible voters in the council will be disenfranchised. Government must extend the period of the exercise by at least two weeks and better computers should be brought to make the exercise successful.

“There are over 200,000 eligible voters in the local government. So far, one quarter of these people have not been captured and if nothing is done, these people will not be able to exercise their franchise in the general election; that is our fear.
“Hundreds of youths who were not eligible to vote in 2011 are now eligible this year, but unfortunately all efforts to capture them in this exercise is failing and they are so worried”.

The resident INEC commissioner, Habu Zarma, while responding to their complaints appealed to people of Qua’an Pan Local Government area, saying government will ensure every eligible voter in the country is captured.

Zarma said: “INEC will look at the complaints and take appropriate measures to address the challenges.

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Qu’anpan council boss leads protest to INEC over poor PVC registration