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Crowd management is a challenge at elections – INEC
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INEC declared in Abuja on Wednesday that management of large crowds at many polling units remained a challenge at elections.
Its Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, made the declaration at INEC’s first quarter meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) for this year.
Yakubu said that with only 119,973 Polling Units serving a voter population of more than 84 million, Nigeria faced an acute problem of voter access to polling units.
He noted that it was more worrisome as the number of eligible voters would increase when fresh registration resumed,
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says voter turnout across Nigeria hovered around 30 to 35 per cent of registered voters in the last two electoral cycles.
Chuks Okocha in Abuja
Worried by the constant low voter turnout during elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said that it has resolved to work towards increasing as well as expanding the clustered polling units.
The commission also said that it had received requests from over 5,000 stakeholders in 26 states for increase and expanding of polling units in their localities. The commission said that the last increase polling units was done 25 years ago in 1996 under the National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON).
Addressing leaders of political parties in Abuja yesterday, the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said that after critically appraising the situation of low voter turnout in addition to other factors highlighted by political parties and other stakeholders, “the Commission is of the firm belief that expanding voter access to polling units in Nigeria is crucial to voter turnout in elections.”