The proposed creation of additional 30,000 polling units across the country by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was done with good intention. INEC said the creation of the new polling units is to make it easier to cast votes and avoid unnecessary waste of time at the polling centres.
The INEC commissioner in-charge of South-West, Professor Lai Olurode who spoke at a media interaction organised by Osun State chapter of Association of Veteran Journalists in Osogbo however said the electoral body is ready to review the decision if it becomes imperative.
“We are aware of the criticism on the creation of the 30,000 additional polling units. We don’t want anything that would tarnish our reputation. The intention was good and it was meant to reduce the stress people go through during the election.
“We took the step when we realised that certain polling units had as much as 3,000 voters and we felt that it would amount to wasting time at the polling centres on the day of election as a result of large number of voters in the polling centres and the long queues. We are only concerned and ensuring free and fair elections,” he said.
Source recalls that there have been wide criticisms coming the way of INEC since it introduced some 30,000 new Polling Units, PUs, allocating them across the country in a manner that suggested that the exercise was skewed in favour of the Northern Nigeria.
The allocation revealed that although some states in the North, which recorded less number of registered voters during the Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, got more additional PUs, some states in the South, with more registered voters during the same CVR exercise, got less.
Out of the 12 states in the country that got more than 1,000 PUs from the 30,000, only Lagos was a southern state. The other 11 states are from the North.
It was equally uncovered that INEC was yet to receive the total number of registered voters in at least 12 states of the country, yet it went ahead to carry out anticipatory allocation of PUs.
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