NewsINEC: Uneasy Calm Over Polling Units’ Delineation

INEC: Uneasy Calm Over Polling Units’ Delineation

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BEVERLY HILLS, March 07, (THEWILL) – Few days ago, National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mr Festus Okoye appeared on national television and said the ongoing polling unit increase and expansion should not be likened to the distribution of palliatives, a code name for government alleviation measures to buffer Nigeria against hardship.

He declared that the electoral project, which had often aroused suspicion in the past for no just reason, was intended to make the voter sovereign and strengthen democratic governance.

“What we are dealing with is a long-time challenge that has existed over time and will give credibility and access to the system.” Ms Cynthia Mbamalu, Director of Programmes at YIAGA Africa, a youth empowerment organization that has done extensive work on voter power and elections told this newspaper. She said the project was long over due.

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The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, on Tuesday, February 2 told the Senator Kabiru Gaya (APC, Kano South) led Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on INEC, that the Commission has received 10, 092 requests for polling units across the country.

He said; “The problem is nationwide. There are, at present, 10,092 requests for polling units from all over the country and rising. In other jurisdictions, expanding voter access to polling units is purely administrative. Nigeria should aim for that.”

Yakubu, during his meeting with stakeholders in Abuja in mid-February to canvass support and dispel controversies surrounding the decision on the Commission to increase polling units in 26 states ahead of the 2023 elections, explained the extent of the problem.

He said, “the last time polling units were established was 25 years ago in 1996 by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON). There were 120,000 polling units to serve a projected population of about 50 million voters. Today, the number of registered voters is 84,004,084 and is set to rise after we resume Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) ahead of the 2023 General Election. Yet, the number of polling units remains static. In fact, the biggest category of registered voters on our data base (aged 18 to 25 years) were not even born when the current polling units were established a quarter of a century ago.” In 1996, Chief Karibi Dagogo-Jact was Chairman of the NECON during the military administration of late, former Head of State, General Sani Abacha.

The Commission had tried with negligible success in the past to increase the polling units. The attempts under Professor Mahmod Jega has Chairman of INEC in 2007 and 2014 took place very close to election periods and naturally evoke suspicion and resistance by politicians and communities, which felt the exercises were meant to relegate them.

“Because they came too close to General Elections, the Commission’s intention was not properly communicated and therefore misunderstood and politicized, said Yakubu. Yet the voter population has been increasing. From 57.93million in 2019, it rose to 60.82million in 2003, 61,56 million in 2007 and 73.52million in 2011. Though the figure fell to 68. 83 million in 2015, it rose sharply to 80.4 million in 2019. 68.83

So touchy is the issue that the Commission has to consult widely before embarking on the process this time round. Ordinarily, Section 22 of the Electoral Act mandates INEC to create additional units with time. By INEC regulation, each polling unit is not supposed to have more than 500 registered voters on the average. But there are polling units with as much as 2,000 or 3,000 registered voters across the country. Given the social and political fault lines in Nigeria’s multi-ethnic and diverse setting, creation of polling units

And for that reason that the issue had lingered, over 5,000 petitions from 26 states had been flooding the Commission requesting for the expansion and increase of additional polling units, especially in the face of growing population, worsening insecurity, natural disasters such as flooding in places like Bayelsa, Kogi, for examples, that make it near impossible for voters to want to walk far from their localities.

To get the process going without any opposition is the reason the Commission is still embarking with consultation with stakeholders. The consultative meetings, according to Mr Okoye, will involve political parties, civil society organisations, religious leaders, traditional institutions, labour unions, socio-cultural and political organisations and various arms of the federal and state governments.

According to Okoye, the Commission had for the past several weeks been preparing for the national engagements to discuss the inadequacies of Polling Units in Nigeria and the challenges they pose to election management.

He identified some of the challenges potentially disenfranchising millions of Nigerians and posing health risks in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic as over-crowding, increased populations and poor locations.

Okoye said: “For several years, the Commission has tried to address this fundamental challenge to democratic consolidation and election administration with minimal success. This has been mainly due to inadequate engagement between the Commission and stakeholders.

“Consequently, the Commission has had to resort to interim measures such as creating Voting Points at Polling Units nationwide and establishing Voting Point Settlements in the Federal Capital Territory.

“These engagements will afford an opportunity for the Commission to consult with stakeholders in order to build a genuine national consensus to address the problem of declining voter access to Polling Units.”

“Among the burning issues to be addressed at these consultations are the challenges that declining access to Polling Units pose to democracy and election management in Nigeria.”

Several communities in Nigeria, especially in the fast developing areas suffer acute shortages of polling units leading to several of voters having to travel several kilometers to cast their vote on election days. Others unable to cope with the stress simply disenfranchise themselves by staying put in their homes on election days. For examples, new areas have sprung in Gwarimpa in the Federal Capital Territory, where according to Okoye over 20,253 voting settlements are presents

According to an INEC National Commissioner, Professor Okey Ibeanu, the increase and expansion in the number of polling units across the country would help reduce election violence, rigging and clustering during elections.

Assuring the public that the Commission means well with the ongoing exercise, Okoye dispelled the fear that creation and expansion of existing voting units has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity.

“Access to vote, to restore the sovereignty to the voter,” he explained is the focus of the exercise. Pressed further, he stated that,” the project is not a palliative allocation but the rights of the people. In Kago area of Kaduna state and Gwarimpa in the FCT, voting settlements are in the neighbourhood of 25,000 and 20, 253 respectively. On election days there is usually confusion and some can lead to cancellation of results, so lets bring voting units closer to the people.

Yakubu is, however, confident on the success of his Commission’s mission: “I am confident that by working together we will make history by finally solving this 25-year-old problem of enhancing access to polling units in Nigeria. The Nigerian voter and our democracy in general will be the biggest beneficiaries of increased access to polling units.”

Lagos PDP Spokesman, Taofik Gani, is doubtful.

“The issues of INEC and acceptable election processes are beyond polling units. Creating 100 PUs on a street won’t change the integrity problem in our elections.

“Why can’t we have electronic voting linked to voters’ ID and the election can be done online?” Gani said. He has a supporter in Ms Mbamalu.

She said: “The conversations show that people are part of this process. What is required is for INEC to use some acceptable benchmarks in converting over 50,000 voting points and settlements into units, to inform the decision to relocate voting points.”

She explained further that; “If there is a political will to do the right thing, it can be done. The challenge in Nigeria has not always been the lack of creativity but the political will to engage the process. I think INEC is committed to do it. INCE has played a leadership role in ECOWAS on such matters”•

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Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.

Amos Esele, THEWILLhttps://thewillnews.com
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.

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