POLITICIANS BOUGHT, SOLD ENUMERATION AREAS By Chairman, National Population Commission, Chief Eze Festus Odimegwu Ahead of the 2015 general elections, the National Population Commission has uncovered fake enumeration areas, which were bought and sold by politicians in most states of the federation in previous elections. The Chairman of NPC, Eze Festus Odimegwu, raised the alarm on Thursday evening in Abuja during a courtesy call on him by senior management officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission led by its Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega. At the meeting, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by both government agencies on areas of partnership on constituency delimitation ahead of the 2015 polls. At the event, Jega said 73.9 million Nigerians had been registered by the commission, adding that INEC currently boasts of the best and most reliable data among the agencies of government in Nigeria. “We were able to discharge this responsibility within three weeks. We intend to improve on that,” Jega said. According to Odimegwu, who was responding to a request made by the INEC chairman to officially release some certified data to assist the commission in its planned constituency delimitation, NPC discovered that most of the existing enumeration areas in the country were bought just like some voter cards by some politicians to gain electoral advantage. He said, “The enumeration centres we have, some of them do not exist in reality, some politicians bought them the way you will want to register voters and some people will buy voter cards in order to have an advantage. “Some people bought the enumeration areas and raised the number from about 250 to 500 and if you later count and discover that the population is 10, they will say ‘no, but we gave you 500, you have to raise it to the number we gave you.’ So, all the mess must be cut off by doing a clear national frame. “There is no officially certified data for all localities in Nigeria because when I came and saw what they called the compendium of all localities and I found out how the enumeration areas were bought and sold, I heard certain things were in a way that is not professional; I said we will not publish what they called compendium of localities because if we publish it, court cases and controversies will inundate our commission.” The NPC, he said, would partner with INEC to produce what he called O.55 digital photography of the entire country. Odimegwu also said plans were on to conduct a census, possibly in 2016, adding that the commission had a mandate to conduct a Greenfield, zero-based biometric census by 2016. He said, “Elections and censuses are critical and often contentious issues in any developing democracy like ours. Due to the significant role they play in defining the democratic parameters of the country, elections and censuses have been subjected to undue political perception and misunderstanding by the political class.”
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:30:42 +0000
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