2019 election : Why visual aid is very important

All across the world, most countries where voting exercise are conducted, people below 18 years are not allowed to vote. The reasons are clear: According to www.quora.com, one of the reasons is that majority of people think those under 18 are too easily influenced by irrelevant information or social pressure. Secondly, the majority of people think those under 18 lack experience of life sufficient to make good judgments.

Recently, it went viral that under age citizens are seen registering for permanent voters card, this was not under any doubt because video evidence was involved. This first appears to be a make-up video to tarnish the image of INEC, however, the INEC boss did not deny this claim. He actually emphasised the reason for such phenomenon. One of the reasons he gave was that most of the INEC official are under threat to register those underages. Under normal circumstance, no one would blame the INEC officials for succumbing to such pressure, because your safety comes first. A dead man can not report abnormalities, the dead can’t complain. It is the living that report. But the question I want to ask INEC Boss is, what was the measure taken having known that such trend of pressure to register underage is happening?

And it is a known fact that before PVC is issued to anyone, it must be taken to Abuja for verification, processing before its return.The second question is: Were the INEC officials under pressure for issuance? because systematically, during the processing, those underage voters would have been denied?

I would not want to engage myself on who takes the advantage of the underage voters.But the fact remains that, underage voters are not allowed.

• Underage voting: INEC committee submits report

With all these variables, to restrain the underage voters could be very difficult during election and extremely dangerous for INEC officials, for this reason, I want to propose the use of camcorders or any specially designed video devices for these purpose at all voting points.

This would not only restrain only the underage voters but would also document other abnormalities at all voters points. It should be done in a way that, centres that could not produce credible video evidence of voting should be declared void or order reconduct.

• Barakat Ajekunle, 08164427457.