Real reason INEC won’t hold elections in 240 Polling Units nationwide

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday said the commission would not conduct elections in 240 polling units across the country due to insecurity.

INEC’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this at a meeting with political parties in Abuja.

He explained that the commission had in 2021 successfully expanded voter access to polling units 25 years after the last delimitation exercise in 1996, saying that the the number of polling units increased from 119,973 to the current figure of 176,846.

He said at the previous meetings, the commission brief the parties on its efforts to redistribute voters to the polling units in order to avoid the congestion that made voting cumbersome in many of them nationwide.

Yakubu said this required the redistribution of voters to new polling units in proximate locations, adding that where they were separated by distance, this must be done after consultation with the voters.

“However, there are 240 polling units without registered voters spread across 28 states and the FCT. They range from one polling unit to 12 polling units in each state and the FCT, except Taraba and Imo states with 34 and 38 polling units respectively.

“No new registrants chose the polling units and no voters indicated interest to transfer to them during the last Continuous Voter Registration, mainly for security reasons. This means that no elections will hold in these polling units,” he said.

Yakubu stated that in the commission’s avowed commitment to transparency, it was making available to Nigerians a comprehensive list of these polling units by name, code number and their locations by state, local government and registration Area.

He explained that with this development, the number of polling units where elections would hold nationwide on February 25, 2023 and March 11, 2023 is now 176,606.

“Hard copies of the list are included in your folders for this meeting. Above all, Nigerians deserve the right to know the locations of these polling units. Accordingly, the soft copy of the list has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for public information and guidance, ” he said.

The INEC chairman added that closely related to the distribution of voters was the identification of polling units, noting that from the feedback received from its officials and accredited observers following the recent nationwide mock accreditation using the BVAS, it was clear that some voters could not easily identify their polling units.

“This should not happen on election day. Consequently, the Commission is advising voters to confirm the locations of their polling units through a dedicated portal on our website.

“In addition, all voters who have been assigned to new polling units will receive text messages from the Commission indicating their polling units. We have also compiled the register of such voters and our State offices will give it wide publicity, especially for those who may not have provided their telephone numbers during voter registration or those whose numbers may have changed,” he said.

According to Yakubu, voters could locate and confirm their polling units before election day by sending a regular text or WhatsApp message to a dedicated telephone number, saying that details of the simple procedure would be uploaded to our social media platforms shortly.