The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has commenced the physical capturing for prospective voters in the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, exercise in Akwa Ibom State after the online registration that begun on August 18, 2025.
Following the reopening the online CVR for fresh registration, update of information, transfers among other issues, prospective voters in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, came out in their numbers for the biometric capturing as earlier announced by the Commission.
At the Uyo local Government Area office of INEC by 8 o clock in the morning, staff were on ground to coordinate and attend to applicants issues while security men were on hand to ensure orderliness for a smooth exercise.
Though capturing could not be carried out due to technical issues as at the time of visit, staff were seen attending to other concerns such as transfer, information update among others.
While at the State office of the commission, the exercise was seamless with the machines working perfectly.
Speaking with Radio Nigeria, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Obo Effanga, Esq, who addressed the people, noted that the Commission has put everything in place to ensure a smooth exercise.
The REC explained that INEC officials were attending to the different categories of applicants based on their peculiarities.
“Here in the State office, as you can see, people are being attended to. We have people here who are for fresh registration, we are attending to them, we are also prioritising the elderly, persons with disabilities, pregnant women as well as nursing mothers and for those who are here for some other thing apart from fresh registration, we have different staff including myself attending to them. Some of them can actually do this by themselves using their smart phones and we put them through to do it.”
“We are also explaining to people, apart from those coming for registration for the first time, that they can do it from the comfort of their homes without coming to the INEC office, some of them have left to do that. We have desk for each peculiarity be it fresh registration, transfer, information update, PWDs, and so on, the process is going on smoothly as you can see,” Mr Effanga said.
Looking at the turnout, the REC noted that though there is a large number of persons, one cannot assess those for new registration. “When we say impressive turnout, on what basis? There’s no way for us to know how many people actually have need for this because some are transfer, change of name, some have lost the card or defaced, so we can’t tell the number of people who ought to come and then compare that with the number of people who have actually come. This is just day one we still have a lot of days for those who are yet to come.”
An applicant who narrated her experience commended the Commission for giving preference to the aged, pregnant and nursing mothers as well as people with disability.
“When I came here this morning, I met people here for the exercise and the staff were already on ground to attend to us before 7am because I came here before 7am, they gave us numbers and the place was very well organised. They sensitized on what was needed and what was required of us. They arranged seats for us to ensure we were comfortable.”
The CVR exercise is expected to continue till August 30, 2026. However, the Commission has urged all intending registrants not to wait till the deadline to avoid last minute rush.
