INEC Establishes 57,023 More Voting Points Ahead Of Elections

Eniola Olayemi

In preparations of the next Saturday’s elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has created additional 57,023 voting points.

According to the commission, the need for more voting points became necessary so as to address the large number of voters which now stands at 84 million.

The Premier News gathered that the voting points would be carved out of the existing 119, 973 polling units nationwide, contradicting earlier statement the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who said more voting units would not be created.

Yakubu had said last month, “On polling units, the commission wishes to assure the media that there is no change in the number of polling units and voting points used for the 2015 general elections and the 2016 Area Council elections in the FCT.

“Any insinuation that new polling units, voting points or voting points are being created by the commission is utterly baseless and should be disregarded.”

However, it was learnt that following a high-powered meeting by INEC national commissioners and other relevant stakeholders, it was decided that 57, 023 new voting points had to be created.

It was learnt that the move had become necessary because the number of registered voters had risen by 15 million since 2015 and as thus the old arrangement was not feasible.

The additional voting points would also ensure that voting is done in record time in order to allow for quick collation of results which will be expected to take longer due to the high number of political parties which has since risen to 91.

A national commissioner at INEC said, “We have established 57,023 across the country because the number of voters has increased. We are creating more voting points and not more polling units.”

The commissioner explained that a voting point is created when a polling unit has more than 500 registered voters.