By BEN AGANDE
ABUJA — The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has so far registered 63.9 million Nigerians from the results collated nationwide from the recently concluded voters registration exercise as at yesterday morning.

National chairman of the commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, who disclosed this yesterday at a colloquium on “Nigeria 2011 Elections: Building Confidence, Enhancing Credibility,” organised by a coalition of civilsociety organisations, noted that the figure represented 85 per cents of registered voters so far collated.

Jega, who expressed surprise at the huge turn out of Nigerians during the exercise, said it was indicative of the rising confidence in the electoral process.

“With most (not all) of the data now reported by the states, we have by this morning registered 63,981,460 Nigerians for the coming elections. I wish to appeal to all Nigerians to also turnout in their numbers for the verification exercise that will take place from 14th to 18th February. The list will be displayed in all polling units during the period for the public to register their claims and objections” he said.

Jega noted that the failure of the commission to display the register for claims and objections “partly explained the problems of the now old voter vegister,” adding that the display of the voters register would afford Nigerians an opportunity to deal with irregular enteries.

According to the INEC boss, the Commission had learnt lessons from the past in preparing for the voter registration exercise and the election proper, adding that the lessons learnt informed the commission’s decision to divest the technical aspect of the registration from contractors.

“We took time to carefully specify the hardware we needed in order to standardize them and also audit the equipment supplied. In the past, this did not happen and the Commission found itself with sub-standard equipment, different types of equipment, some unsuitable for the work to be done and yet others largely untested.”

Speaking on the forth coming elections, Jega said the outcome of the election was not of interest only to Nigerians but also to the international community, noting that the mistakes that characterized elections in the past had engendered both “fears and excited anticipation among Nigerians and the international community.”

Professor Jega said procurement, deployment, training, and nomination of candidates, dealing with election disputes, voter education, improving balloting processes, organizing election observation, preventing electoral fraud and transmitting results remain some of the daunting challenges facing the commission as it prepares for the elections.

On security challenges, the INEC boss said though this remain daunting, the commission could not control it because it is not within its purview.

“We are already seeing the ugly head of electoral violence across the country, not only in areas that are experiencing communal and political violence unrelated to the elections like the Jos Plateau, Niger Delta and Borno States, but in other relatively quiet parts of the country. It is clear that pre_existing conflict processes are inevitably exacerbated during elections, where security is weak and where political actors do not exercise restraint.”