LASG, INEC setup eight voter registration centres for physically challenge Lagosian
As a measure to assist People Living With Disability (PLWD) exercise their franchise during next year’s election, the Lagos State Government and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), have set up no fewer than eight special voter registration centres to assist them in concluding their registration.
They said that the centres would be opened between July 25th and 26th, to ensure that physically challenged persons have seamless registration across the state.
The eight designated centres set up to aid register eligible PLWDs ahead of the election were Ikorodu- Ikorodu Central LG; Badagry- Ability and Disability Centre, Ajara; Ikeja- Old Secretariat; Lagos Island- Onikan Youth Centre; Epe- Sports Recreation Centre; Idi-Araba Correctional Centre; Teslim Balogun Stadium and Oko-Baba, Ebute-Metta.
The centres were announced on Friday by INEC and the Lagos state government through the Office of Disability Affairs (LASODA), during a press briefing held in Ikeja, the state capital.
Speaking on the centres, the General Manager of LASODA, Dare Dairo, said that PLWDs were affected by social poverty due to exclusion from the exercise across the country.
According to him, this is part of the reasons the administration of the State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, came up with the idea to get PLWDs involved in the exercise, to prevent them from being disenfranchised.
“In collaboration with INEC, we have created special centres across Lagos to assist our people to register and revalidate their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). We have designated INEC officials who are at the various centres and carried out a feasibility study. It is for the PLWDs to take advantage of this window to get their PVCs for the forthcoming elections.”
He disclosed that the agency has written to the electoral umpire to design a special ballot paper for people living with disabilities, in other to guide electorates that were visually impaired to cast their vote without being assisted.
The LASODA boss explained that the trend they aimed to curb was what had been happening between the visually impaired electorates and their guide during polls.
“Sometimes, the visually impaired electorate and their guide may have different political ideologies and support separate candidates. And during the election, the guide, who is asked to assist the visually impaired voter to exercise his franchise could make PLWD vote for his candidate and not the candidate the electorate had planned to cast his vote for.
“Also, we have written to INEC to provide magnifying glasses for albinos, so as to be able to see their names properly when they are displayed at each of the polling units across the country.
“Aside from that, we have asked that the polling units should be made accessible for people living with disabilities. All we want is to ensure that the PLWDs have unhindered access to the voting points in Lagos and other states”.
On the registration points, the Head of INEC Voter Registry in Lagos, Muyiwa Yusuf, assured that the two days would be maximised to ensure that people living with disabilities perfect their registration before July 31st closing date.
Yusuf added that going by the partnership with Lagos State Government, “the two days will be well taking care of by those people so that they are well captured.
“There are people who cannot thump print, INEC has biometeic machines that will capture them. For people with visual impairment, you might need someone you trust on election day. We also have provision for braille so that they can read the paper. For people with low vision like albinism, we provide magnifying glasses,” Yusuf stated.
While lamenting that out of over six million registrants for 2023 elections in Lagos State, over one million PVCs have not been collected, Yusuf urged the concerned persons to go to their respective local governments for collection ahead of next year’s election.
He also disclosed that over 75,000 PLWDs were captured in the entire country since the electoral body began the CVR exercise for the next year elections.
He, therefore, said that the new window opened by the State government would have provided better opportunities to PLWDs if the exercise had been activated much earlier.
