The Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday announced the creation of additional 56,873 polling units.
This brings the number of polling units in the country to 176,846 polling units.
This was announced by the INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, in Abuja Wednesday morning.
According to him, the commission also abolished polling units in private residences and palaces as well as hospitals and any other unauthorised places.
He said the location and number of polling units in the country have been a source of concern for the commission to improve voter participation.
“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,” he said.
“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.Advertisement
“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.”
