The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the creation of 56,873 additional polling units. The INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this on Wednesday at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in Abuja.
This brings the number of polling units in the country to 176,846.
The commission also abolished polling units in private residences and palaces as well as hospitals and any other unauthorised places.
Yakubu said, INEC had removed 749 polling units from inappropriate facilities, with nine of them from shrines and several others from religious houses, royal palaces and private property.
The creation of the polling units is part of preparations for the 2023 general elections.
Yakubu said the location and number of polling units in the country has been a source of concern for the commission as it hopes to improve voter participation.
Yakubu said: “Before 2010, the commission operated on a round figure of approximately 120,000 polling units.
“However, a census undertaken by the Commission before the 2011 general election arrived at the precise figure of 119,973 polling units.
“Following several unsuccessful attempts to create additional polling units despite the obvious pressure from the increased number of registered voters, the commission established voting points and voting point settlements across the states and the federal capital territory (FCT) as a pragmatic response to necessity.
“The voting points were tied to the existing polling units and voting point settlements. The number of registered voters in a polling unit and the voting point settlement in the FCT, was used to determine their voting points, based on the upper and lower thresholds of 500 and 750 voters respectively.
“These were also the limits used for the 2019 general election. The number of new polling units in a state is the number of voting points aggregated from those polling units having voting points.”
He said with that and other necessary adjustments, the actual number of approved polling units came to 119,974, with the 56,872 voting points across the country also converted to polling units.
Meanwhile the commission has fixed dates for the conduct of governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states.
Yakubu said the election in Ekiti will hold on June 18, 2022, while that of Osun will hold on July 16, 2022.
“In keeping with our policy of announcing the dates of elections in advance to enable early and effective preparations by all concerned, the commission has approved that the Ekiti state governorship election will hold on Saturday, 18th June 2022 while the Osun state governorship election will hold one month later on Saturday, 16th July 2022”, he said.
