By Alieu Amara Suwu
Electioneering process begins with voter registration, which is challenging and merges with issues either between registrar and registrants, between party agents at centres or among political party officials monitoring the process. Some of the issues that are most times reported among others are, persons aiding and abetting underage persons, faking documents (like birth certificate) and duplicating previous voter card. These are inseparable for such a process.
Braima Jah, Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police and Director of Operations, giving statistics of matters/complaints reported emerging from the first phase of the voter registration confirmed that only complaints recorded are from the Western Area, Northeast and Northwest regions, and none from Southern and Eastern regions.
Jah made these revelations at the Electoral Commission Sierra Leone Headquarters in Freetown during reports of the first phase of voter registration process.
Highlighting the complaints, the AIG said out of the six divided regions (Freetown east and west, Northeast, Northwest, South and East), nine complaints were reported from Freetown West, with 16 arrests, and two directly charged to court for assault, obstruction and disorderly behaviour.
He said seven case files are currently at the DPP office for legal advice. As for Freetown East, 17 cases were reported and 36 arrests made for allegedly producing fake voter ID cards for registration.
Furthermore, the AIG said three cases were reported from the North West – among them include an underage person trying to register. As for the North East a chairlady (name withheld) of the main opposition was arrested for misleading information on eligibility for voting, and general complaints on scuffles between political party agents at centres in Port Loko.
AIG Braima Jah said divisional heads in the South and East regions gave no complaints from the ongoing registration. He rather said, probably, there are issues but not major that amount to offences.
In another narration, Mohamed Massaquoi, National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) boss, made a presentation on fake and genuine birth certificates. He showed the features of what authenticates a genuine birth certificate and what makes it fake.
