ABUJA – Ahead of the June 28, 2021, flag-off of the nationwide Continuous Voter Registra­tion (CVR) exercise, the Inde­pendent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is deploying a total 5,346 staff to the 2,673 registration centres to enhance the process.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this Thursday at a press conference he addressed in Abuja.

The Commission, he said, is also deploying the novel INEC Voter Enrollment De­vice (IVED), a new registra­tion equipment designed by the Commission’s engineers as a replacement for the old Direct Data Capture Ma­chine, which he hailed for its efficiency, Aside from the 2,346 centres where citizens are to register physically, Prof. Yakubu also launched the online registration por­tal designed to assist citizens pre-register before proceed­ing to registration centres, INEC local government ar­eas and state offices for data capture.

The Commission had recently disclosed that it is targeting the enrollment of about 20 million Nigerians during the current CVR ex­ercise to bring the number of registered voters in the country to 100 million.

Further highlighting the importance of the portal, the INEC chairman said citizens who are seeking transfer of the cards, confirm status of their cards and other services that hitherto bring people to INEC offices can verify such matters via the portal, which he said, is free.

“The idea is for intending registrants to commence the process online by filling the forms and uploading their pictures and required docu­ments, and then make an ap­pointment on the web portal for a date and time to visit an INEC State or Local Govern­ment Area (LGA) office to give their fingerprints and complete the registration.

“In addition, those who are already registered as voters can carry out all the other activities such as transfers, correction of personal details and replacement of damaged or defaced Permanent Vot­ers’ Cards (PVCs) online.