Past attempts to create polling units politicised, misunderstood — INEC Chair

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said that previous attempts at creating additional polling units (PUs) in the country failed because of challenges that include misunderstanding and politicisation.

Yakubu said this on Tuesday at the first quarterly consultative meeting with civil society organisations (CSOs) for the year 2021 held virtually, in Abuja.

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“The commission has reviewed the previous efforts at expanding voter access to polling units in 2007, 2014 and just before the 2019 general elections and why they were unsuccessful. We came to the conclusion that our genuine intention may not have been properly communicated for input by Nigerians and therefore misunderstood and politicised,” Yakubu said.

He said learning from experience; INEC has now decided to start early and to engage with Nigerians by consulting widely.

He said the commission has worked hard in the last two months and produced a discussion paper entitled ‘The State of Voter Access to Polling Units in Nigeria’.