The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, says Nigeria is facing an acute problem of voter access to Polling Units.
Ekwi Ajide of our Abuja bureau reports that Professor Yakubu stated this while addressing heads of various Security Agencies and other members of the Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security at the first consultative meeting for the year 2021.
Professor Yakubu, lamented that with only one hundred and nineteen thousand, nine hundred and seventy three Polling Units serving a voter population of eighty four million, four thousand and eighty which will certainly increase by the time the Commission resumes the mandatory fresh registration of voters, managing the large crowd at polling units on election day will remain a huge challenge such as late commencement of polls or the disruption of the sorting and counting of ballots at Polling Units which often have consequences on electoral outcomes leading, in some instances, to avoidable supplementary elections.
He maintained that the current Polling Units in Nigeria were established in 1996 by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria to serve a projected population of about fifty million voters and over the last twenty five years, the voter population has increased, new settlements emerged. However, but the number of Polling Units has remained the same as it was a quarter of a century ago.
According to the Chairman, the success of elections is largely a reflection of what happens at polling unit level since it is the only point at which votes are cast by eligible citizens therefore, determines to a large extent, the outcome of the election.
The INEC Chairman appreciated members of Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security in the conduct of the two off-cycle Governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States in September and October last year as well as sixteen legislative bye-elections in twelve States in the last nine weeks urging them to employ same in the Anambra governorship election slated for November this year and subsequent ones in the country.
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