By Saio Marrha
The President of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio, has called on citizens to come out and register in the ongoing voter registration exercise so that they can accordingly decide those that will represent them in governance during the 2023 elections, instead of using violent means.
Speaking to Journalists after his registration together with the first lady at the Wilberforce Barracks Hockey Pitch on Saturday 3rd September 2022, President Bio noted that the election process starts from registration. "So if you want to vote, you should register," he said.
He added: “And that is the only way you can express your views instead of you engaging in violence, you should go and register so that on that day you have the power to change or support or keep the government in place."
He called on all, including their political party supporters to desist from violence saying that democracy is the alternative to violence.
Bio also appealed to all to register so that they can maintain his government in power for the many good things they have done.
He pointed out that ECSL is expected to ensure the process is smooth and fast.
The Commissioner for Western Area, (ECSL), Zainab Umu Moseray, told politico that there are two registration machines known as Voter Verification Kit (VVK), which she said is for those that have already registered with the National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) and have the slip or the last Voter Registration Identity Card, which indicates that the person has already registered with the NCRA portal.
Moseray said this will help them to trace the individual's information from the NCRA data and that they only need to look out for the code, which she described as a confirmation process.
According to her, the second machine, the Voter Identification Unit (VIU) is for those that have not registered with NCRA portal and that person will be required to go through all the NCRA registration processes before going through the VVK registration ceremony. She also said they will take a snapshot of the individual's information at the VVK.
She also acknowledged that there has been some amount of technical problems that include the effective use of the machines by the staff even though they had been trained.
Another challenge she highlighted has to do with disappointment in relation to centres that were promised the ECSL for the registration process, but that they were only informed on Friday night and Saturday morning that the centres were no more available due to the experience from the August 10th protest.
She said they had to go to the owners and talk to them which also delayed the process.
A trader who did not disclose her name at Wilberforce barracks, said she only spent one hour in the queue for the registration process.
She said with the NCRA number, after clicking of her code by ECSL workers, all her information popped up, and she signed and that was all.
The Chief Executive Officer of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah Foundation, an oganisation accredited observer status, Ambassador Soulay Darramy, said the fastest time he had observed according to his time was 1 minute and 5 seconds. He noted that that was the case of a person that has all his documents, which means a mere verification process.
He however said the slowest is four minutes and 15 seconds. He said the person was uneducated, and hadn’t accurate documents.
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