A secret voters’ registration exercise has been going on at the Presidential Lodge, Calabar, suspected to be at the instance of the APC led state government.
It was gathered that the exercise started since the window was opened by INEC for online registration of potential voters across the country.
Sources said some officials of the state government, with supports from the chief of staff, Government House, Dr Emmanuel Ironbar, have been mobilizing people to go there to register, for a fee.
Even, some of the people who had registered earlier, were said to have been conscripted to register at the government facility’s illegal centre.
While some of the people are said to be paid N20,000 to take part in the registration, others are said to be collecting higher, especially those who are coming from other local governments, outside Calabar.
In some cases, the people whose names are being used for the registration do not appear physically. Some other people’s passport pictures are said to be used at random, for the exercise.
The plan, according to our sources, is that the APC government plans to hike the number of registered voters in all parts of the state to enhance their chances of winning through multiple thumb-printing on election day.
It was not clear whether INEC officially deployed its machine to the presidential lodge for the registration.
INEC’s media officer in Calabar could not be reached as at the time of this report. But a source in INEC who did not want to be named, told our correspondent in Calabar, that the exercise would be futile, noting that the commission had a way of detecting and deleting double registrations
