Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has charged the Independent National Electoral Commission to evolve a workable tool that would ensure the registration of eligible voters for credible elections in the country.
Abubakar made the call on Thursday in Sokoto while addressing newsmen at the end of his one-day visit to inaugurate development projects in the state.
He urged the commission to produce a system that would enable the speedy and credible registration and collection of permanent voter cards by all eligible electorate in the country ahead of the 2015 general elections.
He advised INEC to address complaints from some quarters of inability of Nigerians, who registered during the exercise, to collect their permanent voter cards.
The former vice president therefore called on the country’s electoral body to ensure all Nigerians were duly registered and issued with the permanent voter cards.
He said this would ensure that the conduct of the election was successful.
Abubakar also advocated complete independence of the commission to enable it conduct free, fair, credible and transparent elections.
According to him, this will be possible if the commission is directly funded from the country’s federation account.
Besides, he asked Nigerians to defend the country’s hard earned democracy by protecting their votes during elections.