NEC, Director of Media and External Relations, Albert Massaquoi assured Sierra Leoneans that 3,300 registration center have been opened for the registration of eligible voters nationwide, and that it was a way to get everyone to be registered.

“in actual fact in 2012 we had 2,998 centers and there is ten percent increase for the 2017 voter’s registration process and it still better than what we had in 2012” Albert Massaquoi as quoted.

He further explained that in 2012, they did biometric registration and in 2017, it will be the same biometric registration process. On the contrary, Massaquoi stressed that the registration process will be a different scenario, owing to the fact that the ongoing registration process will be detailed and directly involving the wider population. 

In 2012, there was no component of civil registration aspect and in 2017, it had been included as part of the registration process, and that the civil registration had already taken over the entire electioneering registration process. Massaquoi ascertained.

Albert Massaquoi maintained that NEC happened to be part of the process just because of the previous experienced and that NEC also had some component of the process. He reiterated that there are several information required on the ongoing process, than what was demanded for in 2012, and that the 2012 registration had little information for it to be used as civil registration data again in 2017, a situation he said warranted them to conduct another registration process.

Executive Director, National Election Watch, NEW, Massela Samba Mentioned that their organization have been pleading to all citizens to participate actively in the process and that the question of preparedness happened to do with how Sierra Leoneans would approach the process, she added that NEW would definitely observed the entire process.

“We have trained 900 observers that are going to be part of the process, for fourteen days we are going to do what is called a representative sampling.” Massela Samba as quoted.

 She promised that their organization would be observing and they will ensure that no group or community will be disenfranchised, as well as assessing the accuracy of the registration list, as she stressed that registration process had to do with people that are eligible to vote and that the entire process happened to be a thorough verification process of who had the legitimate rights to vote.