Voter registration exercise on course, says Jega
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega says the voter registration exercise scheduled to begin next month is still on course, in spite of the interim court injunction restraining the Commission.
On Friday, a Federal High Court in Abuja granted an ex-parte application filed by an indigenous company, Bedding Holdings Ltd, which claims to be the patentee for Direct Data Capturing Machines and other ancillary equipment used for producing voters’ register.
The firm accused INEC of infringing on its patent right by contracting three external companies to produce the voters’ register for the 2011 general elections without its authorisation.
It asked the court to declare that it was the owner of the patent rights No. 16642 and copyright designs No. RD 13841 and other Electronic Collapsible Transparent Ballot Boxes, which were being used to produce the voters’ register.
“I am not discouraged by the latest development. I know we are doing the right thing,’’ Jega told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the 2010 Achebe Colloquium on Africa in Rhode Island, U.S. “I understand that we have not yet been served even though he went and obtained an ex-parte injunction against INEC, so we wait and see, maybe on Monday.
“If we are served we will respond appropriately and I have no doubts that the matter will be addressed in our favour because there are so many frivolous cases out there of people trying to throw spanners in our works’’.
``We trust the judicial process, and we trust that at the end of it all, the right thing will be done,’’ he said.
Also reacting to the court order, the INEC National Commissioner in Charge of Legal Services, Barrister Philip Umeadi (Jnr) said that the commission was yet to be served with any court order, but “if the commission is served, we will approach the court with a view to set aside the order.
“We have not been served with any court order or the court process leading to the restraining order. As soon as the service is effected on the commission, we shall study it and commence processes of setting it aside.” Umeadi said.
The INEC National Commissioner also assured Nigerians that there is no cause for any panic or alarm over the court order, saying, “the court is there to vindicate the just.”
In granting the order against INEC, Justice Auta said “The defendants/respondents either by themselves, agents, privies, contractors, surrogates, or any other person or persons claiming through them, are restrained from continuing the process of considering proposals of entering/bidding for, producing, procuring, supplying, acquiring, importing, buying, receiving, selling, leasing, alienating, applying or otherwise using the Direct Data Capturing Machines, Laptops and/or any other equipment ancillary to, or associated with the process and application of the said machines/equipment about to be supplied or being supplied by the 4th-6th defendants/respondents to the 1st and 2nd defendants/respondents for the registration of voters and/or compilation, production and use of a voters’ register for the 2011 general election or any other elections whatsoever, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction filed before this honourable court.
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