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Fri, Mar

Election Will Not Hold In 240 Polling Units, INEC Reveals

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed through its Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, during a meeting on 13th February 2023, in Abuja with political party leaders, that election will not hold in 240 polling units across the country in the forthcoming election. Yakubu recalled that in 2021, with the support of political parties and other critical stakeholders, the Commission successfully expanded voter access to polling units 25 years after the last delimitation exercise in 1996.
Yakubu said consequently, the number of polling units increased from 119,973 to the current figure of 176,846.

He said that efforts were also made to redistribute voters to the polling units in order to avoid the congestion that made voting cumbersome in many of the PUs nationwide.

Yakubu said “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 the states as FCT except for Taraba and Imo states with 34 and 38 polling units, respectively.
“No new registrant chose the polling units and no voter indicated interest to transfer to them during the last CVR mainly for security reasons. This means that no election would be held in these polling units.”

The chairman stressed that in the avowed commitment to transparency, the Commission made 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 said with this development, “the number of polling units where elections will hold nationwide on 25th February 2023 and 11th March 2023 is now 176,606.” Yakubu stressed that Nigerians deserve the right to know the locations of these polling units while adding that the soft copy of the list has been uploaded to the INEC website and social media platforms for public information and guidance.

He added: “Closely related to the distribution of voters is the identification of polling units. From the feedback we received from our officials and accredited observers following the recent nationwide mock accreditation using the BVAS, it is 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.

 

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