Kisii governor, James Ongwae, has challenged IEBC to register more people in the south Nyanza County as the electoral body prepares to engage in a month of mass voter registration exercise.
Ongwae, who hosted the western coordinator, Sarah Ogaro in Kisii on Thursday, said the body only managed to register 450,000 people out of a million eligible voters from the region. He said his government would provide all the logistical support for the electoral body to ensure many Kenyans from the region get a chance to exercise their political freedom by registering as voters.
''I would like to ask IEBC to register more voters in the region because we have a large number who are eligible but didn’t get a chance to register in 2013. As a county, we would support the electoral team to ensure all these people are registered during the mass registration,'' he said.
Ongwae also challenged the electoral body to consider extending the first phase of mass registration exercise that commences this February and urged parliament to consider allocating resources to power the exercise.
''I don’t think one month alone is enough. The exercise should be extended to two months so that we reach more people. I don’t think next year will be an appropriate time to register people and instead IEBC should carry verification of the register exercise,'' he said.
He urged residents to cooperate with the electoral body by registering in numbers and also urged leaders to help spread the message to locals.