By Doh James Sonkey
The Director General of Elections at Elections Cameroon, ELECAM, Dr Erik Essousse has called on all Cameroonians of voting age who have not yet registered on the electoral roll to take advantage of their newly acquired state of the art 1000 biometric kits and ultramodern cards printing machine to boost voter registration in the remaining months to the 2025 Presidential election in Cameroon.
He was speaking to reporters last May 7, 2025 at the end of a tour of the Military 101 Airbase in Yaounde where the kits arrived Cameroon and at ELECAM Head Quarter where the ultramodern cards printing machine has been installed.
Speaking earlier as he trained regional staff of the Directorate General of Elections at Elections Cameroon, ELECAM on the use of the new biometric enrollment kits, Dr Erik Essousse urged them to pay particular attention to the training modules so as to come out from there with knowledge and good mastery of the new biometric kits recently acquired to perfect Cameroon’s electoral process.
The training of trainers’ workshop that took place last May 7-11, 2025 at Suits Hotel in Yaoundé was in prelude to the deployment of new biometric enrolment kits acquired this 2025 by ELECAM. Attended by staff of the Directorate General of Elections and branches, the workshop was to equip them with knowledge on how to use and maintain this new equipment.
The Director General of Elections who officially launched the workshop last May 7, 2025 in the presence of Deputy Director General of Elections, Abdoul Karimou, promised that after this workshop, others will be held at regional capital as well as in diplomatic missions and consular posts of Cameroon abroad. He explained that these workshops will bring together local ELECAM officials and the kits operators responsible for the day-to-day enrolment of Cameroonian citizens on the electoral register.
Dr Eric Essousse disclosed that ‘‘in three weeks we will be going down to the field to distribute this enrolment kits. Each kit is comprised of a 13th generation Dell Laptop with Intel Processor, an IB Kojak FAP60 Fingerprint scanner, compliant with FAP60 standards for 10 fingerprint capture etc. A 85w solar energy charger is included in the bag for fast charging of the machine even in areas where eneo is absent.’’
In a chat with reporters, he further explained that, ‘‘we have sent to the field around 800,000 cards. And I feel that in some weeks, we’ll be at 1 million. And as soon as the electorate is convened, we’ll also produce the last electoral card for the electors of 2025. New generations that produce cards at a rate of 3,000 per hour. And as we work in a system of 24 hours a day, we can say that we are at more than 40,000 cards. So, everything has changed in the best sense for a new technology that satisfies us.’’