By CHARLES IWUOHA

The Leadership Entrepreneurship and Advocacy (LEAD) Network Africa, an NGO, has urged Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reconsider completing the ongoing registration of seven million new registrants in its Continuous Voters Registration (CVR).

The appeal is contained in a statement by the Executive Director of the NGO, Mr Chukwuma Okenwa, made available to newsmen in Enugu on Tuesday.

Okenwa said rather than INEC to play the blame game at this point for an exercise that ought to be a continuous process, the commission should make provision for the completion of the process by the citizens affected.

According to him, this is even more so, considering the fact that there was still about five months to the 2023 General Elections.

The Executive Director said: “It does not just make sense, if those citizens were not accommodated. Otherwise, why did INEC set aside some time to validate their records? Should it not be to address matters arising after the said exercise?

“Ahead of 2023, we call on INEC to be as independent as possible, to avoid giving the impression that the majority of those affected are deliberately done with the intention of disenfranchising a certain candidate.”

He warned that the commission should not make the majority of stakeholders in the electoral process perceive that “INEC's position on denying seven million citizens an opportunity to vote is biased.”