Segun Awofadeji in Gombe
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Gombe State has said it is expanding its electoral polling units with an additional 770 new ones across the state.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Alhaji Umar Ibrahim, stated at the weekend during a stakeholders’ meeting that new settlements are among areas that would mostly benefit from the creation of the new units which was last created over 25 years ago.
The meeting was on the expansion of voters’ access to polling units held at the conference hall of the Federal Secretariat in Gombe.
He said the expansion became necessary following embarrassing challenges that included congestion at polling units due to growth in population; long distance between polling units which affects voter turnout among other reasons during elections.
According to him, “It is worthy to note that the current polling unit structure used by the commission was created since 1996, which is almost three decades now.”
He explained that during these three decades, stakeholders have witnessed a number of embarrassing challenges that affected health and safety of voters and election officials.
The REC stated further that after a successful expansion exercise which took staff of the commission into the field, Gombe State would now have an additional 770 polling units more to the existing 2,218 making a total of 2,988 polling units in the state.
He said: “This represents a percentage increase of about 35 percent which comes very timely and handy as the commission plans to roll out Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) early next month.”
Backing the commission’s action, he pointed out that “moved by this stakeholders’ demand and wide consultations, INEC evoked the powers conferred on it by section 42 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) and adopted to expand access to polling units for improved electoral services.”
Many political parties representatives at the meeting expressed their happiness over the new development and promised to go back and enlighten their party members on it.
