..Says Every Section of Nigeria Wants More

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has so far received 9,777 requests for additional polling units across the country. This is coming amidst call by Northern leaders for the Commission to create more polling units.

At a consultative meeting with members of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) in Kaduna on Tuesday, INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu recalled the last time polling units were created in the country was in 1996 when 119, 973 polling units came into being. The INEC boss said 25 years after, no new polling units have been created.

“Since 1999, the nation had conducted six general elections using the same polling units. The growing demand by Nigerians for additional polling units is increasing by the day.

“We did not ask them to forward their request but they did that unsolicited. In fact, there is one request we received from a person requesting for about 800 polling units in his area”.

Speaking further, Yakubu disclosed that “from October 2020 when the Commission received 5,700 requests for additional polling units, the number of requests have skyrocketed by 4,077 in just 4 months.

“As of yesterday, the 15th February, 2021, we have received 9,777 additional requests for polling units.”

Yakubu maintained that the call for creation of additional polling units is not confined to a particular section of the country but rather “every section of the country is asking for more polling units.”

Explaining further, he said “the ongoing consultation with critical stakeholders is to ensure that Nigerians understand why it has become necessary to have additional units”.

He lamented that over the years there has been voter’s apathy as citizens’ right to exercise their franchise has been hampered compared to the situation in Ghana.

The chairman argued that the creation of additional polling units was necessitated by certain factors ranging from “overcrowding, electoral violence, poor electoral service among others.”

“So far we have met with political parties, NGOs, security agencies, media, now with ACF. Going forward we will meet with the National Economic Council, brief the Federal Executive Council and National Council of States.”

Yakubu said: “it is in realization that the Commission may not have engaged adequately with stakeholders in the past that the present Commission decided to embark on this far-reaching series of engagements.

“From next week we will meet with the National Assembly,” he added.

Responding, the National Chairman of ACF, Audu Ogbeh noted that from the presentation made by the Commission’s chairman, the message is very clear.

Ogbeh, who was represented by the National Secretary of ACF, Mr Murtala Aliyu, said: “we should not politicize the issue. We should give Nigerians what they want.” He added that: “ACF will reach out to the people of the region and educate them about it.”

In his preface to the discussion paper titled, The State Of Voter Access To Polling Units In Nigeria, Prof Yakubu says, “Polling Units are central to the electoral process and therefore democracy at large. Voter access to Polling Units is at the very heart of electoral democracy because Polling Units are the basis on which citizens exercise their fundamental rights to vote and to make electoral choices freely. Consequently, Polling Units largely shape citizens’ confidence in the electoral process, the levels of either participation or apathy, as well as security and safety during elections.”

According to him, “Voter access goes beyond the number of Polling Units available to voters. It also entails citing Polling Units in places that are conducive to voting as well as the extent to which the environment of each Polling Unit provides a good voter experience and implementation of the regulations and guidelines of the Commission on Election Day.”

Yakubu explains further: “Over the years, voter access to Polling Units in Nigeria has been declining. For the 2019 General Election, the average number of voters per Polling Unit was about 700 nationally, rising to over 2,000 in the Federal Capital Territory while a specific Polling Unit in Nasarawa State had over 15,000 voters.

“Furthermore, some Polling Units are located in very difficult places that do not encourage voters to participate in elections, particularly persons living with disability. Others are located in places experiencing conflicts or in places under the control of partisan actors. Moreover, because of inadequate Polling Units, many voters have to travel long distances to their Polling Units on Election Day.”

The current configuration of 119,973 Polling Units was established by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON) in 1996. In the nearly 25-year period since then, every attempt to review or reconfigure the Polling Unit structure has been unsuccessful for sundry reasons. Consequently, the 1996 Polling Unit configuration was used for the 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 General Elections.

When the Polling Unit structure was established in 1996, it was projected to serve about 50 million registered voters. However, the number of registered voters for the 1999 General Election was 57.93 million. This rose to 60.82 million in 2003, 61.56 million in 2007 and 73.52 million in 2011.

Although the number declined to 68.83 million for the 2015 General Election following the cleaning up of the register through the use of Automated Fingerprints Identification System (AFIS) to eliminate double registrants, it rose to 84.04 million in 2019 as a result of the Commission embarking on a robust continuous voter registration exercise, as prescribed by law.

The import of this development is that while the number of registered voters increased from 57.93 million in 1999 to 84.04 million in 2019, which is an increase of 45 percent, the number of Polling Units remained the same. This lack of correlation between the number of registered voters and the number of Polling Units since 1999 has resulted in congested Polling Units on Election Day and lack of Polling Units in many developing suburban and newly established settlements.

The effects have been low voter turnout and voter apathy, insecurity at the Polling Units, disruption of elections and, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, unsafe voting environments. Indeed, presently, the average number of voters per Polling Unit in Nigeria, which stands at 700, is 37% more than the situation in Ghana.

Yet, this could be quite misleading because in some States in Nigeria, the average number of voters per Polling Unit is well over 4,000. Indeed, in one Polling Unit, Mararaba Garage II in Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, there are 15,061 voters, which is more than 2000% above this national average.