Victor EzejaAhead of Nigeria’s 2023 general elections and other off-season polls, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has said it would create additional polling units in different states across the country to expand voters’ access to polling centres.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, gave the indication at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) held at the INEC conference Room, Abuja on Tuesday 15th February 2022.
Prof. Yakubu said the exercise which is to decongest polling units with high number of voters, has been done in some states but there were still more that needs to be decongested by creating more polling units for easy access by voters on election day.
The INEC Chairman said, “Last year, the Commission achieved the historic feat of expanding voter access to polling units nationwide. The idea is to decongest the densely populated polling units by converting the erstwhile Voting Points (VPs) and Voting Point Settlements (VPS) to Polling Units and relocating some of them to unserved and underserved areas to make it easier for voters on Election Day.
“While this lofty goal has been achieved in many states, there are still congested polling units and other polling units with between 0 and 50 voters as we saw in some of the recent elections.
“Over the next few weeks, the commission will intensify efforts to address the issue ahead of the forthcoming Ekiti and Osun Governorship elections and ultimately the 2023 General Election. Finding a solution to this issue is one of the reasons for convening this meeting.”
He highlighted the commission’s line-up of activities which include conducting bye-elections in four states across the federation to fill six vacancies in the House of Representatives and some state Houses of Assembly; end-of-tenure Governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States coming up on 18th June and 16th July 2022, respectively.
For the Osun, he said party primaries commences tomorrow 16th February and ends on 12th March 2022.
On the ongoing continuous voter registration exercise, the INEC boss said the commission has decided to devolve the registration centres to electoral wards in all states across the country to enable more eligible Nigerians register and be able to vote in the upcoming elections.
“In view of the forthcoming elections, the commission has decided to devolve the CVR exercise to ward level in both Ekiti and Osun States to enable more citizens register.
“Similarly, in order to provide more eligible voters with the opportunity to register, the commission is considering the devolution of the exercise nationwide beyond our state and local government offices where the registration currently takes place.”
Recently, in its weekly update on voter registrations, the electoral body revealed that it has recorded over nine million fresh registrants since it started the exercise which has entered the third quarter.
READ ALSO: INEC Records 5.5m New Voters In Continuous Registration Exercise
He said the commission has over the years been making continuous efforts to improve it’s operations to ensure a smooth conduct of elections across the country.
On the issue of deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System devices in elections, Prof. Yakubu said the commission has taken note of the challenges encountered during the elections in Anambra State in November 2021, Isolo State Constituency in Delta, and the FCT Area Council elections, and would improve their functionality to enhance accreditation of voters in future elections.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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