Politics
INEC: The Row Over New Polling Units
About six months to the
2015 elections, politicians have began for a attention and relevance and in some cases exchanging political missiles designed to shut down their opponents’ using subtle and direct campaigns even when the umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has not officially flagged off campaigns. The INEC, which has not denied that there are mistakes and lessons to be learnt from previous conduct of elections especially the last three Anambra, Ekiti and Osun governorship polls, is however, hopeful that it would improve in its subsequent conduct of elections.
This dictates the commission’s decision for constant re-examination to see whether it is still on the path of reforming and improving the electoral process that will promote free, fair and credible elections.
The fallout of INEC’s strategy to reform the electoral process in line with international best practices is the creation of 30,000 polling units(PUs), bringing the total number to 150,000 nationwide from 119,973 that had existed since 1996. Out of the 30,000 PUs, the North got 70 per cent of the new units (more than 21,000 units) while the balance of a little more than 8,000 polling units were allocated to the South. The wide disparity int he collection has therefore sparked up a row. The commission is accused of shortchanging other parts of the country in favour of the North in terms of the new polling units.
The South East region under the aegis of the South East Leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party rejected the recent allocation of the new polling units, describing the allocation as “a gross injustice against Ndigbo.”
“We reject entirely the allocation of polling booths by INEC. We view it as a great disservice to the unity and progress of this country if the entre South will have 8,000 polling booths and the North gets 21,000. We demand that the issue be suspended forthwith. This is a prelude to undermine the interest of the zone in the 2015 elections. It is completely against the spirit of one Nigeria and progress of the country,” the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh declared while briefing the Press at the end of the zone’s meeting at Abia State Government House, Umuahia.
Ogun State PDP chairman, Bayo Dayo expressed similar dissatisfaction with the allocation of the additional PUs. He is worried about the lopsidedness in the allocation.
He said, “Professor Attahiru Jega is an intelligent and honest man but if his honesty is not in the best interest of the South West, we will react and if need be, we will seek redress in court.”
Though civil rights activist, Comrade Moshood Erubami said it would be premature to fault INEC’s wisdom in the distribution of the PUs when we don’t know the criteria used, Afenifere chieftain, Chief Supo Shonibare agreed that the distribution was lopsided.
“I am not aware that INEC is an authorized body on population census. If it is based on estimate, it is wrong to give a section of the country more polling units at the expense of the other,” Shonibare said.
Another body that did not spare INEC over the allocation of the additional PUs is the Electoral Integrity Network.
Apart from doubting the operations of the commission in the electoral process, the Network was categorical that the exercise was a calculated move to favour certain section of the country, and malign others in the electoral process. The Network which also accused the commission of playing the script of powerful political individuals, also insisted that INEC’s new move is capable of inducing acrimony and hatred in the system which if not properly managed could trigger off crisis before, during and after polls.
The Plateau State Leaders said the political interest of the State has been undermined by INEC’s new allocation of PUs. In their press statement, the leaders asked the commission to re-visit the exercise as a whole, saying that in the spirit of national unity, no section of the country should be short- changed in any socio-political and economic process.
However, Attahiru Jega-led INEC, while absolving itself of what it called “spurious allegations”, explained the rationale for the creation of the new polling units which it argued were meant to facilitate ease access of voters to polling units in the forthcoming elections. INEC also justified the current move from past exercise and structure.
How did it all start?
The defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON), in 1996, created the present structure of polling units. INEC, inherited this structure but in 2010 went further to verify them and their locations. It ascertained a total of 119,973 units. Quite revealing was the fact that substantial number of the identified PUs are located in public buildings (primary and secondary schools, recreation centres/packs, community halls etc). Yet, there are some other PUs located in public open spaces (village /town/market squares, community grounds) and the remaining ones located in the premises of traditional rulers, places of worship, frontage of private houses, compounds etc).
The decision to align with global best practice, the electoral body argues, informed its plan to situate polling units within enclosures in public institutions and buildings, and where this is not possible, in places where tents / canopies’ can be erected for greater convenience of everyone involved in the electoral process.
When the current polling units were put to use in 1996, the estimated population of Nigeria was put at about 110 million, and by 2011, when INEC conducted the general voters registration exercise, the population was estimated at 160 million. Presently, this figure has grown to an estimate of 175 million.
Apart from the issue of population growth, INEC’s move may have been influenced by “severe demographic shifts”. According to INEC advertorial, there has been a notable growth in the number and sizes of new settlements across the country, especially in urban centres.
INEC argues that the reconfiguration of the PUs is apparently a strategy to break large polling units into manageable structures known as voting points and this increased the number from the present 119,973 units to 150,000 PUs. Under this arrangement, large polling units are disaggregated into multiples of 300 registered voters per voting point-with a polling unit having multiples of voting points, depending on the overall population of voters. The voting points are not autonomous units, per se; they remained integral to respective polling units.
The usage of these units may have elicited suspicions from interest groups and some political parties who accused the electoral body of secret agenda in the operations of the units. Whereas the electoral law provides for every political party to have one polling agent each at a PUs, some parties demanded to have polling agents at every voting point.
Also significant is the decision of the INEC to increase the technology content of the electoral process. For the 2015 elections, the commission intends “to use chip-embedded smart-card (as voter cards)and companion smartcard readers. Using the voting points as presently constituted, the commission said it will “require some 250,000 units of the smartcard readers to operate.” This has high cost implication to the economy.
As far as addressing electoral challenges are concerned, INEC believes that reconfiguration of the polling units is the answer, and the guiding principles for the reconfiguration include that polling units will now be located as much as possible in enclosure such as classrooms and halls of public schools, institutions, community centre, town halls, and where they are to be situated in open spaces, tents or canopies will be erected.
Furthermore, a public institution that accommodates more than one polling unit will be designated as a polling station and polling units will be located within a reasonable distance to voters at least a maximum radius of one kilometer in urban areas and two kilometers radius in rural areas. Each polling unit will have a maximum of 500 registered voters.
Proportional distribution of the newly created 150,000 polling units, however, shows that Lagos state has the highest number with 2,870 to bring the total number of its polling units to 11,565 to serve its 5,426,391 registered voters, while Kano State with 4,751,818 registered voters got additional 2,053 polling units to bring its total number to 9,809. Kaduna State, with registered voters of 3,743,815 benefitted additional 2,878 polling units to bring the total number of polling units in the state to 7,485. Bayelsa State, which has the lowest voting strength of 590,679 in the country got additional 121 polling units, making a total of 1,925 voting centres in the state.
The concern of the critics over of the allocation of additional 21,000 polling units to the North as against 8,000 allocated to the South may have been prompted by unsavory reports emanating from polling units during electoral activities.
A member of Delta PDP, Col Joseph Achuzia (rtd), described INEC’s allocation of the new PUs as illogical and wondered the rationale behind the move. The inference from the INEC move, he said, is that majority of the voters in the country are in the North, whereas the cleaning up of the voters register done recently by INEC has belied that notion.
He recalled that enumerators who registered voters in the North usually based their figures on estimates by virtue of their inability to get into certain areas to carry out the national assignment because of Islamic restriction. According to him, this Northerners always use the Islamic restriction as an excuse to stage-manage enumerations in their favour.
The decision of the electoral commission may sound logical especially when it is viewed against the background that the new polling units were previously known as voting points and were appendages of existing polling units. What this means is that INEC only acted from existing structures. But the people have the right to know the details of the reconfiguration so as to rebuild their confidence that were shattered overtimes by previous electoral mistakes.
On its part, the electoral body should consider it necessary to embark on massive sensitization and enlightenment programme for the citizens to allay their fears and educate them that its move has best intentions to ease the logistic challenges confronting electoral activities.
Another option of defence open to INEC in the creation of more polling units is the 2010 Electoral Act which provides that each polling units shall not have more that 500 voters. The need to comply with the provision of the Act, it would be argued, puts the commission on a sound footing for its action.
Samuel Eleonu
INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has begun deploying non-sensitive materials to the zones as it prepares for the 2027 general election.
Acting Chairman of the commission, Prof. Rhoda Gumus, disclosed this in Abuja, yesterday at a bench-marking meeting with a delegation of Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
“Right now, all non-sensitive materials are almost ready. In fact, today as we speak here, the non-sensitive materials have been lifted to some zones now,” Gumus said.
She said the commission had completed nine of its scheduled activities and was preparing for the next phase.
“We are preparing for the election next year and we have activities lined up. So far, we have been able to complete nine activities and we are still preparing for the next level of activities,” she said.
Gumus said the commission’s leadership had just concluded a tour of the country’s six zones to assess their level of preparedness.
“The purpose was to go round the zones to see how prepared we are, assess what the zones have put in place, their challenges and what to do. We concluded last week and we can see from our tour that we are really going towards the election proper,” she said.
On Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), the acting chairman said production had been completed and distribution to the states was well advanced.
“As of today, we can say that PVCs have been produced and the first, second batches, most of the states have received them. Their PVC collection is ongoing. All those who are supposed to be the voters are supposed to receive their PVCs, and if they don’t have them, it is also another challenge,” Gumus said.
She added that capacity building was under way for staff at the headquarters and in the states, and that the procurement and deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS devices were also ongoing.
On diaspora voting, Gumus said the commission could not proceed for now because the law did not provide for it.
“Here, because we go by the law, in our electoral law, it is not included there, so we cannot go on for the diaspora voting for now until we amend the electoral law,” she said.
The acting chairman said the commission had arranged for its directors to hold an interactive session with the Kenyan team and present papers on the work of their departments.
Leading the delegation, the Kenyan High Commissioner to Nigeria, Isaac Parashina, said the IEBC team was in Nigeria to benchmark ahead of Kenya’s general election in August 2027.
He said the team was studying how Nigeria handled its diaspora population and special voting groups, as Kenya sought to widen voting rights for citizens living abroad.
“Currently we have about 12 of them who voted in the last general election, but there is intention to expand to around, I think, 26,” Parashina said, referring to the countries where Kenyans abroad vote.
He said the expansion was a constitutional requirement backed by Kenyan court rulings, and would be enforced progressively.
Parashina said Nigeria’s election, which he noted would come in two rounds, would be closely watched across Africa.
“Everyone is looking at what Nigeria will do because it is the biggest democracy in Africa. The success of Nigeria remains a great success to Kenya and indeed to the continent,” he added.
The High Commissioner thanked INEC for receiving the team despite a tight schedule and wished the commission success.
Governor Douye Diri has set a target of at least one million votes for President Bola Tinubu in Bayelsa State in the 2027 presidential election, while charging the newly inaugurated All Progressives Congress (APC) State Campaign Council to prioritise reconciliation, party unity and collective electoral mobilisation.
Governor Diri gave the charge at the inauguration of the 20-member campaign council at the APC secretariat in Yenagoa, where he warned that internal divisions could undermine the party’s efforts to secure victory for President Tinubu and other candidates at the federal and state levels.
Governor Diri urged party members who were not appointed to the council to support its activities by taking the APC’s message to communities, wards and polling units across the state.
He specifically charged the campaign team to mobilise at least one million votes for President Tinubu, arguing that Bayelsa’s voting strength had increased and should be reflected in the 2027 election results.
“I give you a target that in Bayelsa, we must not bring less than one million votes for Mr President. You are going to campaign, and you have a lot to talk about the President. He has done so much for our people,” the governor said.
He listed the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, the second phase of the Nembe-Brass Road, interventions in the power sector, federal appointments for Bayelsa indigenes and the establishment of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy among the achievements the campaign should present to voters.
The governor particularly praised President Tinubu for the coastal highway project, arguing that it reflected federal attention to the development needs of coastal communities.
“No president, alive or dead, has remembered the coastal people and coastal states to say let us do this signature project from Lagos to Calabar. The first president to think about it is Bola Tinubu, and those were the demands of the Ijaw people,” he said.
Governor Diri also expressed hope that a second term for President Tinubu would provide an opportunity to advance demands for fiscal federalism, greater resource control and state policing, which he described as longstanding aspirations of the Niger Delta.
He said the President had shown indications of addressing some of the demands of younger Nigerians and argued that re-election would allow the administration to consolidate its reforms.
The governor further cautioned campaigners against personal attacks and abusive exchanges with political opponents, insisting that the APC should focus its campaign on issues, policies and achievements.
The governor’s mobilisation directive comes amid criticism from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has questioned his commitment to President Tinubu’s re-election campaign, alleging that APC campaign billboards erected across Yenagoa promote other party candidates without featuring the President.
The PDP, through its Publicity Secretary, Mr Ikaebimo Mark, said the billboards showed Governor Diri urging voters to support APC candidates for the National Assembly and State House of Assembly elections without identifying President Tinubu as the party’s presidential candidate.
Mr Mark described the omission as an indication that the governor was not fully aligned with the APC’s national leadership.
“When we said that the governor, Senator Douye Diri, is not supporting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we knew exactly what we were saying. Now Governor Douye Diri has erected APC campaign billboards across Bayelsa State without Tinubu’s picture. He is even afraid to associate himself with the photograph of the presidential candidate of his own party. How can this governor claim to be supporting President Tinubu?” he said.
The PDP, however, maintained that the governor’s public campaign posture raised questions about his commitment to the President’s re-election bid. Its allegation over the billboards now places the issue of the relationship between the state APC leadership and the party’s national campaign among the political questions likely to feature in Bayelsa’s preparations for 2027.
The PDP’s allegation has introduced a fresh political dimension to the APC’s preparations in Bayelsa, even as Governor Diri publicly called on party leaders and members to close ranks and mobilise support for all its candidates.
“Every person picked as a member of this campaign council was carefully scrutinised. I want to tell you that our campaign team is loaded. We parade the best candidates among all the parties in Bayelsa State, and there is no doubt about that,” he said.
He urged members to remain focused and united, warning that political opponents could exploit any divisions within the party.
“Our unity is very important because they would want to feast on our disunity. We will not give them that opportunity. Please, as you carry out this assignment, do not take your eyes off the target,” Hon. Ogoriba said.
SP Edafe explained that during the meeting, the organisers were briefed on the identified security threats and advised against embarking on an open-road procession.
Instead, the police reportedly recommended that the political activities be conducted at a designated venue where adequate security arrangements could be provided.
However, the Command alleged that the organisers disregarded the security advice and proceeded with the road procession.
Meanwhile, the Delta State Government has condemned the political violence that erupted in Asaba, the state capital, on Saturday, confirming that one person was killed while four others sustained serious injuries.
The government described the incident as unfortunate and unacceptable, warning political parties and their supporters against actions capable of threatening public peace, security and democratic participation in the state.
In a statement issued by the Commissioner for Works (Rural Roads) and Public Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, the government reiterated its zero tolerance for political violence, intimidation and other forms of political misconduct.
Mr Aniagwu said the government had repeatedly cautioned political parties against engaging in activities capable of disrupting the peace, insisting that the incident could have been avoided if the organisers had followed security advice.
According to him, the police had advised the organisers to cancel the proposed street march and instead conduct their political campaign at a designated venue where adequate security arrangements could be provided.
He expressed concern that the advice was allegedly disregarded, resulting in a confrontation that claimed one life and left four other people seriously injured.
The government subsequently called on the police to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the violence and ensure that anyone found culpable is brought to justice.
Mr Aniagwu further warned that the state government would not tolerate politically motivated attacks against any individual, regardless of political affiliation.
He maintained that Delta State remained safe for residents and visitors, stressing that the government would not allow the actions of individuals or groups to undermine the prevailing peace and security in the state.
The government also urged political parties, their leaders and supporters to conduct their political activities within the confines of the law and demonstrate respect for human life, public order and the rights of other citizens.
The latest development follows an attack on supporters of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) during a political procession in Asaba, which reportedly left several participants injured and campaign vehicles vandalised.
The government’s condemnation comes amid growing concerns over political violence and the safety of opposition supporters as political activities intensify ahead of the 2027 general elections.
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