With his voter's card, Nurudeen can now vote in the general election scheduled to take place in April.

Lagos State, which is Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, recorded the highest number of registered voters with over 6 million registrants, while more than 63 million people were registered to vote across Nigeria.

Political campaigns begin

Political campaigns are already picking up ahead of the elections in April. Early in February, the Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, kicked off his presidential campaign under the banner of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, with a rally in Nassarawa State, North Central Nigeria. He has been touring the various geo-political zones of the country to convince Nigerians to elect him as president during the presidential vote due on April 9.

The Action Congress of Nigeria, a major opposition party has also launched its campaign in the Nigerian capital, Abuja with former head of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as its presidential flag bearer. The other over 50 registered political parties are also fine tuning strategies following INEC’s official nod for parties to begin political campaigns.

Road to credible polls

President Jonathan has promised a free and fair election, appointing Professor Attairu Jega in June, 2010 as chairman of Nigeria's electoral commission, INEC. Upon his appointment, Jega decided to compile a fresh voters’ register. He said this would aid the conduct of a credible election and serve as a foundation for subsequent elections in the country.

However, when the voters’ registration started in January 15, there were complaints particularly about the Direct Data Capture machines. Many said the machines were faulty or difficult to use. For instance, finger prints were very hard to capture, and till the last day of the registration in Lagos, eligible voters had to wash their hands to make it easy for the scanner to capture their finger prints.

These challenges resulted in the slow start of the exercise. Eventually, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, extended the voters' registration by one week across the country and gave additional two days in some selected states across Nigeria.

“Initially when they started they had a lot of problems, so that made their work load to be much,” an eligible voter, Olalekan Oduoye who got registered on the last day in Lagos told AfricaNews.

Expectations

Oduoye who is an Information Technology professional said he hoped that the challenges experienced during the voters’ registration would not spring up again during the elections and affect credibility of the polls.

“My expectation is INEC fulfils all their promises that it will be one man, one vote and being the first time, we are going to be using the DDC machines, that whoever will be winners will be the people that win legitimately.”

INEC has in the meantime said the challenges that affected the voters’ registration would not be witnessed during actual voting in April, because the DDC machines would not be used during the election.

“The election is different from the voters' registration. During election voters will only make use of their voters’ card and counting will be done manually, so the issue of DDC machines won't come up.” INEC’s Chief Public Affairs Officer in Lagos, Femi Akinbiyi said when asked how INEC would overcome the challenges of the DDC machines when elections come up in April.

Olalekan Oduoye, like many other Nigerians, hopes INEC would live to its election promise and compensate Nigerians, who have spent time and resources to get registered to vote, with credible voting process.

“I don't expect them [INEC] to still go and now begin to manufacture figures; wasting all my time here I have spent to register. I expect a free and fair election,” Oduoye said.