THE new voters register for the conduct of the 2011 general election will be ready by December 9, chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, revealed on Monday.

Speaking while receiving the member of Study Group 1, Course 32, from the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Professor Jega also said the commission was targeting about 70 million voters during the registration exercise.

The INEC chairman said the commission had gone far on the process of the voter register, having overcome the issue of resource constraint, adding that the registration exercise would be done within two weeks.

He, however, expressed fear over the time constraint, which, he said, still posed a serious challenge, adding that “the more time we have, the better job we can do on this assignment.”

The INEC chairman said “in terms of preparation for the elections, it is clear to us that if we take the constitution amendment and the new Electoral Act 2010  into consideration, the first elections may, at the earliest, hold on January 8 and if this was to be so, then we have to complete the voters’ registration by November 9 and certify the register by December 9.”

Professor Jega said the commission had planned to acquire Direct Capturing Machine and to deploy one each to the 120,000 polling units in the country, adding that the commission would also recruit 360,000 registration officers and deploy three persons to each of the 120,000 registration units.

He assured that INEC would give Nigeria a dependable voter register to build on the future and ensure free, fair and credible elections, adding that “it is going to be difficult, but it is not insurmountable. But we have problem of a very tight time framework.”