By Henry Emeana
Ahead of preparations for the 2023 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has created additional 1, 235 polling units in Imo state for easy voter access ahead of the 2023 general polls.
According to the Resident Electoral Commissioner Prof. Francis Chukwuemeka Ezeonu, these, with the existing 3, 524 polling units make it a total of 4, 758 polling units in the state.
This is just as he has appealed to registered voters who were yet to collect their voters card since the 2019 should go to their various wards to collect them.
Speaking to newsmen at press conference in Owerri ,the Imo state capita on Wednesday, Ezeonu said that the polling units were created with threshold of 500 to 750 registered voters in each polling unit.
He disclosed that under the new arrangement, Owerri municipality has 122 new polling unit, followed by Owerri West with 117 polling units.
Owerri North and Ikeduru local government areas came third and fourth with 91 and 80 polling units respectively while Aboh Mbaise has 79 new polling units.
The Imo state Resident Electoral Commissioner said that the commission took painstaking efforts to ensure that equity was used in determining the new polling units, adding that the exercise was undertaken in order to expand voter access to polling units in line with the the expectations of the law.
The law, according to him, allowed the commission to “Convert existing voting point settlements into full polling units and where necessary relocate new or existing ones to places where they are closer to and/or more accessible to voters and unserved areas.
“Decongest existing polling units by reducing the number of voters per polling units, continue to improve the quality of access to electoral services provided to all Nigerian voters by the commission, including better access at polling units for persons with disabilities (PWDs).
“Improve health and safety conditions at polling units during elections in order to comply with COVID-19 protocols and address declining voter turnout at elections due to lack of access to polling units.”
Ezeonu said that as far as practicable, polling units are to be located in public places, preferably centrally located and accessible, non-partisan, non-sectarian locations such as schools and town halls.
Provision, he said, was also made for spacious facilities to cater for adequately sitting election officers, political party agents, election observers and voters if necessary.
The commissioner reiterated that under no conditions were polling units located in private compounds, royal places, residents of government officials, political party buildings, worship centres or anywhere that could deny voters access and disputed buildings or facilites .
Meanwhile, the State Resident Electoral Commissioner has called on those who were yet to collect their voters’ cards should come forward to and collect them.
“We have made efforts for the people who were yet their voters’ cards and we have compiled their lists and we have even asked the Traditional rulers in the various communities when to come and distribute the voters’cards to the people but the traditional rulers who had earlier agreed but now wants to collect the cards themselves to give to their people but we refused because voters’cards would not be given through a third party. So, we are appealing to the people to come and collect their cards “.
