As the Biometric Registration exercise reaches its fifth day, there has been complaints in some areas of people’s faces changing into snakes and masks through the cameras used by registration operatives.
Johnny Lavalie, Coordinator of Ward 381 at the Freetown Secondary School told Awoko yesterday, that a certain woman’s face showed that of a ‘Bondo’ mask when her identification photo was taken. He said more than three attempts was made to take the woman’s photo and all the attempts showed the symbol of the ‘Bondo’ mask. “We could not do otherwise, but to let the woman go and come back some other time,” Mr. Lavalie said.
He also revealed to Awoko that at a certain registration center in Waterloo, another incident was reported which had to do with a man whose image through the camera turned to be a snake. “This almost caused pandemonium at the center,” he said, noting that two attempts were also made in the case of the man but all turned out to be the same.
“At the third and last attempt, the camera screen went totally blank, which caused the camera operator to almost abandon his seat,” Lavalie explained.
Mr. Lavalie went on to outline a number of problems registration officials are also facing with people going to register. According to him, sometimes they find it difficult to trace the contour lines on the fingers of certain people especially those who work in quarries because their thumbs have been damaged. “Such will have to do their thumb prints over and over again which also contributes to the delays people are complaining about,” he explained.
He also disclosed that the registration officials would have to appeal to some of the people who have registered for their photos to be taken. “Some people just don’t want to have their photos taken. We would have to coax some of these people,” he revealed.
The Ward 381 Coordinator said in the following days, they would be making public appeals to people at the centers to “let the process go on in peace”, noting that it is possible some people are playing with some mystical properties that don’t want to be pictured.
By Betty Milton