By Austin Ogwuda
ASABA—THE ongoing registration of voters which started with initial hiccups is gradually progressing in Asaba and environs as  individuals and communities are providing more generating sets for easy charging of the Direct Data Capture, DDC, machines.
Many of the centres visited, yesterday, showed that more individuals have been registered as compared to the negligible few that were registered when the exercise took off on Saturday.

Investigation showed that the provision of generators by individuals and communities was done to ensure that such communities do not record poor figure at the end of the exercise as the number of registered voters was seen as a political tool.

A community leader and Odogwu of Okpanam, Chief Peter Dunkwu, who monitored the registration at his hometown Okpanam told our reporter, yesterday, “It has improved better than what we had few days ago. At least, more voters were registered today than what we witnessed earlier. It has also been discovered that the machines need to be charged properly. So, people are donating generators because they don’t want to wait for INEC because of bureaucracy  and all that. It is progressing,” he said.

However, there were long queues at Ika National Hall, Agbor and Asaba Girls Grammar School, Asaba, when our reporter visited.
On his part, the Resident Electoral Commission in the state, Dr. Gabriel Ada, who had been in the field monitoring the exercise appealed to residents to be patient as the initial hiccup was easing off.