By: Mariama Njie & Binta Jaiteh
Resident of Sukuta and Bijilo community have shown dissatisfaction on the voter registration process, complaining that the queue is long and time spend is less, whilst supervisors said residents should understand that privilege is given to vulnerable people.
Speaking to this medium exclusively, Modou Jallow resident of Bijilo said it is always difficult to arrange community people for such gathering.
He added that “for that reason I volunteer in my community to arrange the people at the village square so that there will be no chaos among them.
“Pregnant women, elderly women, handicaps, service men are not allowed to join the queue which many don’t understand and for that reason some are complaining,” he said.
Isatou Cham, also a resident of Bijilo said that she is not satisfy with the way the process is going, adding that “Bijilo is a populated community, there should not be nothing like going out for a break and resuming back in the day, since yesterday I have not been able to register only on queues.”
I heard that the voter registration will last for 10 days, so if the process continues being this slow how will everyone be registered on time? There should be at least two tables attending to people, she stressed.
JerrehDarboe, supervisor for Bijilo said the voter registration is normal and going smoothly except some few difficulties that they encountered.
Stating some of the difficulties, he said people on the queue are not organize and they will be pushing on another which we didn’t blame them as it is our responsibility.
He said so far in Bijilo they have registered and printed 300 hundred cards and that the turnout is always impressive.
Responding to resident’s dissatisfaction, Darboe said “they should understand that we work by time, we start by 8am, take a break by 1:30pm and resume by 2:30pm and close 5pm so we don’t have to exceed those time given. I believe people should be patience and know that they will all be registered.”
The turnout is very good that each day we don’t attend to all and we will refer them back to the following day.
Fatou Bah, resident of Bijilo who was on the queue said “I came here yesterday but before I could reach it was time for them to close and I had to go back till the following day
Meanwhile, Ousman Bojang supervisor for Sukuta said the voting registration starts since Saturday and they are facing a lot of difficulties in the process.
He said applicants are impatient because everyone wants to be registered and that cannot be done at the same time.
“From IEC we were told that mentally- ill person, elderly and the lactating women should not join the queue but if you want to emphasis that for the people to understand. it is a problem,” he added.
Some taught that we are being bias to them while we not doing that everyone is equal to us as this is our job and it needs to be done with fairness, he said.
He pointed out that so far, they have registered 700 people in sukuta and the turnout keeps increasing each day.
Maimuna Trawally, resident of Sukuta also laments that the queue for that reason many especially the young ones will be frustrated and decide to go home.