BEVERLY HILLS, February 05, (THEWILL) – The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, on Friday met with the all chairmen and secretaries of political parties.
The meeting, which held at the INEC headquarters is the first engagement with party leaders aimed at enhancing voters’ access to polling units.
Yakubu, who proposed the creation of more polling units, said the last time polling units were created was 25 years ago.
He said the inadequate number of polling units in the last 25 years have contributed to voter apathy and a dwindling voter turnout.
“Nigeria has continued to maintain 119,973 polling units since 1996, when the country had about fifty million registered voters. the figure has remained same even when the numbers of registered voters have risen to over eighty-eight million.
“Unfortunately, the last time polling units were established was 25 years ago in 1996 by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON). There were 120,000 polling units to serve a projected population of about 50 million voters.
“Today, the number of registered voters is 84,004,084 and is set to rise after we resume Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) ahead of the 2023 General Election. Yet, the number of polling units remains static. In fact, the biggest category of registered voters on our data base (aged 18 to 25 years) were not even born when the current polling units were established a quarter of a century ago.
“Certainly, the Commission tried unsuccessfully to expand voter access to polling units in 2007, 2014 and before the 2019 General Election. However, these attempts were handled administratively. They also came too close to General Elections. Consequently, the Commission’s intention was not properly communicated and therefore misunderstood and politicised.
“Learning from previous experience, the Commission has now decided to engage with Nigerians by consulting widely. We have worked hard in the last two months and produced a Discussion Paper entitled “The State of Voter Access to Polling Units in Nigeria”, prepared satellite imageries of the location of polling units across the country as well as pictures and videos to demonstrate the difficulties faced by voters on Election Day.
“The hard and soft copies of the Discussion Paper is being widely shared and will be uploaded on the Commission’s website and social media platforms latest by Monday 8th February 2021”, he said.
The INEC boss explained that efforts to have more units created in 2007, 2011 and 2019 were misunderstood.
He stated that the number of voters has grown, thus making it imperative for the commission to create more polling units.
On his part, the chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Leonard Nzenwa, who responded on behalf of the parties commended INEC for the proposal.
He however wished that the process had commenced earlier than now.
