INEC logo
The Senate Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday warned the electoral commission against proceeding with its plan to create additional 30,027 polling units in different parts of the country, saying the commission would face the music if it insists on going ahead with the move.
While issuing the warning yesterday, the committee chairman, Senator Andy Uba, who acknowledged that the commission’s decision to create additional polling units was a good idea, emphasised that the timing was wrong.
According to him, much time is required to first educate the electorate on the transfer of some of them from one polling unit to the other before actually embarking on the exercise, adding that if INEC opts to ignore the letter sent to it by the committee asking it to halt the move, the committee would be left with no option than to pass a resolution against the commission.
INEC had last month announced its plan to decongest polling stations by creating 21,000 additional units in the North as against 8,000 units in the South. But the commission has since the announcement, come under severe criticism mainly from southerners who accused Jega of plotting a northern agenda.
Critics of the idea described it as unjustifiable and a deliberate decision to give the North greater advantage over the South at the forthcoming polls.
But Uba dismissed the insinuation that Jega was plotting a northern agenda, insisting that the only problem with the decision was wrong timing.
“We have sent a letter to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and we expressed our reservations over the planned creation of additional polling units across the country. What he’s doing is good but the timing is wrong. We are close to an election year and we have so many displaced people in the North-eastern part of the country. So, where will the INEC put the new polling units? Wuse II, Abuja, for instance, where they have 4,000 registered voters now, you know the inconveniences coming from there.
“With 4,000 people queuing on a line, it is not possible for you to be accredited and then start voting. Otherwise, many people will come and turn back but it is a good idea. Only the timing is wrong that is all we are saying.
“Nobody is saying what they did was wrong as some people are saying that there is ulterior motive. There is no ulterior motive in it. That is not the issue. If they continue with it, we’ll pass our resolution. It is simple and once we pass our resolution, will he go ahead, saying that he doesn’t care?
“There are consequences when you say you don’t care but I know he is a gentleman and he is a man that keeps his words. We had a meeting and sent him a letter. What people are saying that he is plotting is not our business.
“And I don’t believe that there is anything he has in mind against anybody or anything but all I am saying is that the timing is wrong because if you are in a polling unit, now they move it to another primary school somewhere, you need time to educate the people, saying I have moved your polling unit to some other place.
“But if you have to get there before they tell you that ‘your name is not here,’ the man doesn’t have time to tell you that your name is in so, so and so place. So, it needs time to educate people to let them know that ‘you are no more here. You have been moved to a different polling unit’ but it is a good idea because it will decongest these polling units. It makes things work faster. When you come in, you will get accredited and you will vote and go but when you have 4,000 voters per polling unit, that is a problem. So, we have been working together and I know we will continue to work together,” Uba said.
He also promised that amendment to 2014 Electoral Act would be concluded when Senate resumes from its two weeks of Sallah break.
No comments:
Post a Comment