INEC denies favouring North in allocation of polling units

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has faulted claims that it favoured the North in the distribution of new polling units.
The commission, in advertisement, explained that the 30,027 new polling units across the country were created from existing voting points for the purpose of easing the logistic challenges of the commission.
INEC’s Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega is from the North.
According to the commission, the new polling units were previously known as voting points and were appendages to previously existing polling units.
It explained: “Since 2011, the commission has employed the strategy of breaking large polling units into manageable structures known as voting points.
“Under this arrangement, large polling units are disaggregated into multiples of 300 registered voters per voting point- with a polling unit having multiples of voting points depending on the overall population of voters. These voting points were not autonomous units; they remained integral to respective polling units.”
According to the electoral body the new initiative was hinged on the fact that these voting points elicited the suspicion of political parties which accused the commission of secretly creating additional polling units.
This created problems for the commission as some of the parties requested that they should have agents at all voting points, whereas the Electoral Act provides that there should be only one party agent per polling unit,.
Besides, it added that the second reason the polling units were created because if left as before it would would require the deployment of 250,000 electronic card readers which would have a huge cost implication for INEC.
The commission said, “In order to address all the aforementioned challenges, INEC decided to reconfigure the polling units and increase the number from the present 119,973 units to 150,000 polling units. The guiding principles for the reconfiguration include; polling units will be located as much as possible in enclosures (classrooms and halls of public schools, institutions, community centres town halls). In open spaces, tents or canopies will be erected.
“A public Institution that accommodates more one polling unit will be designated as a polling station; polling units will be located within a reasonable distance to voters – a maximum radius of one kilometre in urban areas and two-kilometer radius in rural areas; each polling unit will have a maximum of 500 registered voters.
“In effect additional polling units will be created out of those presently having more than 500 registered voters in multiples thereof; polling units will be located In secure places that provide for easy deployment of staff equipment and materials: as well as places that allow effective and unhindered management of polling day activities; where existing polling units are located In places not suitable, they will be relocated to appropriate sites; emerging settlements with substantial voting age population will be considered for the establishment of new polling units