By Promise Eze
Just few days to the general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that elections will not be held in 240 polling units across the country.
The nation’s electoral body noted that the 240 polling units, which are without registered voters, cut across 28 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
According to Leadership News, INEC boss, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who disclosed this at a meeting with Political Parties in Abuja on Monday, explained that no new registrant chose the polling units and no voter indicated interest to transfer their registration to them during the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), mainly for security reasons.
He noted that 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 be held in these polling units,” he added.
Consequently, he said the number of polling units increased from 119,973 to the current figure of 176,846.
Speaking further, he said voters can locate and confirm their polling units before election day by sending a regular text or WhatsApp message to a dedicated telephone number.
He said details of the simple procedure will be uploaded to INEC social media platforms shortly.
“As you are already aware, we have less than two weeks until the 2023 General Election. The Commission is finalising the issuance of 1,642,386 identification tags for the Polling and Collation Agents nominated by the 18 political parties made up of 1,574,301 Polling Agents and 68,085 Collation Agents.
“I urge the Chairmen and leaders of political parties to ensure that only agents accredited by the Commission and wearing the correct identification tags appear at polling units and collation centres during elections,” he noted.
