From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC Saturday disclosed that it was set to convert voting points across Nigeria into full fledged polling Units.
National Commissioner, Independent National Electoral Commission, Festus Okoye, dusclossd this on Saturday. during a stakeholfers meeting of the Commission.
Justifying the planned exercise , he observed there were 119,973 polling units in 1996 when there was 50 million registered voters iin Nigeria adding there was need for the ecercide now that there are 87 million registered voters in the country.
“We are going to convert the voting points into polling units in order not to disenfranchise eligible voters across the country.
“It therefore developed as guidelines for the exercise with a threshold of seven hundred and fifty (750) voters as maximum and five hundred (500) voters as minimum in a polling unit.
“There is going to be a registration exercise that will commence soon to which I call on those who are due for registration to ensure that they register” Barr Festus Okoye stated.
Resident Electoral Commissioner Kano state, Prof Riskuwa Shehi in his remarks said that Kano State presently has 5,457,747 registered voters ,8074 polling units and 3246 voting points.
He asvanced that it has been recommended thst the Commission should convert the existing voting points to polling unsit adding that if approved Kano state will have a total of 11,2,222 polling units
He stressed that creation of additional poliing units would expand voters” access to polling unit and address declining access to these units by .
v oters.
Her recalled that Section 42 of the Elecorsl Act 2010 empowers the Commission to establish adequate number of 0polling units acrossthecountry and assign. voters to them.