INEC Creates Additional 1,832 Polling Units In Ogun

Ogun INEC REC, Prof. Abdulganiu Raji (middle) addressing stakeholders at the event

John Odeyemi

ABEOKUTA - The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has created additional 1,832 Polling Units in Ogun State.

The commission said this became necessary to reduce problems encountered by voters in accessing polling units in local government areas of the state.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC in Ogun State, Prof. Abdulganiu Raji disclosed this at a stakeholders' meeting held at the INEC office centre, Magbon, Abeokuta on Monday.

Prof. Raji said the Commission would embark on "Expansion of voters access to polling units and commencement of Continuous Voters Registration (CVR).

He explained that the national headquarters of the commission at its meeting held on Tuesday 20th April, 2021 approved the lower and upper thresholds for Voting Points to 500 and 750 voters respectively.

He maintained that, the additional 1,832 polling units were marked for creation from existing polling units within the threshold, saying the new polling units brings the number of units in Ogun State from the existing 3,210 to 5,042.

He however said that the commission in addition to the expansion will commence the Continuous Voters Registration exercise (CVR) on 28th June, 2021, pointing out that, backlog of registered Permanent Voter's Card (PVC) would be distributed during the exercise.

He added that, the CVR  will be carried out continuously nationwide for over a year until the third quarter of 2022.

He noted that voters will be able to do the CVR through their mobile phones on INEC's website and comeback for the biometrics capturing at the nearest INEC office.

"Over the years, voters access to polling units in Nigeria has been declining due to a number of reasons which include; some polling units that are located in very difficult places that do not encourage voters to participate in elections, particularly people living with disability. Others are located in places experiencing conflicts or in places under the control of political chieftains.

"Moreover, because of inadequate polling units, many voters have to travel long distances to their polling units on election day" the commission said.

"Repeated attempts by the commission to expand Polling Units by establishing new ones and relocating some to better sites have not been successful.

"However, the commission has created additional polling units in all local government areas in the state to make polling units accessible to the voters.

"This will reduce the time of the registration from three minutes to less than one minutes" he said.