Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, has disclosed that as of February 15, the commission had received 9,777 requests from across the country for the establishment of additional polling units.
He observed that the requests, which were 5,700 as of October, 2020, had spiralled by over 4,000 in just four months.
The INEC boss made the disclosure when he visited the offices of the Arewa Consultative Forum office, in Kaduna, for consultation on creating additional polling units in the country.
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The INEC chairman said the purpose of the visit was to meet with the ACF to brief it of the commission’s policy of expanding access to polling units in the country, adding that the issue of inadequate polling units was a national problem.
“We have had 119,973 polling units since 1996, but the number hasn’t changed as it was projected in 1996 to accommodate 50 million registered voters.
“In 1999, the country had 84 million registered voters and the number of polling units still remained the same,” he said.
He noted that, as a result of that ”there was a lot of congestion and this had not given voters a pleasant voting experience on election day”.
Mr Yakubu said the commission was clear on its intention to build a national consensus in the interest of democracy, explaining that the process had begun since last week during which the commission had already met with political parties, organisations, security agencies and the media.
He added that consultation was very important in any democracy, ”and that was why the commission needed to consult, so as to get the aggregate views of Nigerians”.
