Kisumu Governor, Anyang' Nyong'o, has given county workers two days off their normal duties to enable them to mobilise people to register as voters.
During a meeting with the Kisumu County staff on Monday, January 24, the first-term Governor noted that it is the civic duty of all Kenyans to register as voters.
He asked the workers to go to their respective wards and liaise with community leaders to ensure that people register as voters.
Nyong'o added that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had promised to deliver Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits to facilitate the process.
"I would like all ministers and Chief officers to go back to their home areas and report to their ward administrators.
"We must improve these figures, the IEBC is ready to bring those kits there. By the end of this week, we should see a better number than what we have now," he stated.
Further, Nyong'o revealed that only 5,529 people had registered against a target of 130,106 since the second phase of the registration began on Monday, January 17.
“Meaning only 4.2 per cent had registered as voters after one week of the exercise,” he stated.
The Kisumu County boss also ordered his staff to ensure that people who have attained the age of 18 apply for identification cards and register before the deadline.
Nyong'o seemed to echo sentiments that were made a few days earlier by Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga.
Speaking in Homabay County on Friday, January 21, the former Prime Minister voiced his fear that low voter registration could prevent him from clinching the presidency.
Raila revealed that efforts to get people from the region to register as voters were proving futile, adding that he might withdraw from the race.
"We want to bring change in this region and the only way we can do that is by staying strong. People in our strongholds are not registering as voters. We know how many people who are supposed to register, those who have registered and those that have not.
"We keep telling them to register but they don't want to. They keep asking us how it will help them. I am outside the government, if you don't want me to continue my quest, I will just leave it. Do you want me to drop out of the race? Do you? If you don't, please register as voters," Raila urged the electorate in his Nyanza backyard.
IEBC rolled out the second and final phase of Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration (ECVR) on Monday, January 17, in preparation for the August 9 General Election. The process will conclude on Sunday, February 6.
IEBC Chairman, Wafula Chebukati, stated that the commission received additional funding from the National Treasury to facilitate the second and final phase of voter registration.
Chebukati revealed that IEBC had a target of registering 4.5 million new voters who were left out in the first phase.
The Commission rolled out Phase I of the Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration (ECVR) exercise from October 4 to November 5, 2021, where a total of 1,519,294 eligible Kenyans were registered as new voters against the target of 6 million.
