General election: INEC hints on how voters could locate polling units

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has disclosed how voters will locate their polling units before the forthcoming general election.

While also declaring that as a result of insecurity, there won’t be conduct of elections in 204 polling units across 28 states including the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, with each state having about 12 units each with no voters, Taraba and Imo states have the highest polling centre of 34 and 38 respectively.

The Independent Electoral National Commission, Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said this during a meeting with the leaders of political parties in Abuja on Monday.

“Nigerians deserve the right to know the locations of these polling units. Accordingly, the soft copy of the list has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for public information and guidance.

“The Commission is making available to Nigerians a comprehensive list of these polling units by name, code number, and their locations by State, Local Government, and Registration Area.”

Speaking about why INEC won’t be holding the election in 204 polling centres, He said, “To avoid the congestion that made voting cumbersome in many of them nationwide. This requires the redistribution of voters to new polling units in proximate locations. Where they are separated by distance, this must be done after consultation with the voters. This has been done by our State offices nationwide.

However, there are 240 polling units without registered voters spread across 28 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). They range from one polling unit to 12 polling units in each State and the FCT, except Taraba and Imo States with 34 and 38 polling units respectively.

No new registrants chose the polling units and no voters indicated interest to transfer to them during the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), mainly for security reasons.
This means that no elections will hold in these polling units.

According to him, “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.

In addition, all voters who have been assigned to new polling units will receive text messages from the Commission indicating their polling units. We have also compiled the register of such voters and our State offices will give it wide publicity, especially for those who may not have provided their telephone numbers during voter registration or those whose numbers may have changed.

“Voters can locate and confirm their polling units before election day by sending a regular text or WhatsApp message to a dedicated telephone number. Details of the simple procedure will be uploaded to our social media platforms shortly,” Yakubu said.