INEC converts 998 voting points to Polling Units in Cross River

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has created an additional 998 polling units in Cross River State.

The Resident Electoral Commission for Cross River State, Dr. Emmanuel Alex Hart during a stakeholders’ forum in Calabar, the capital city, revealed that with the already existing 2,283, the state now has an expanded 3,281 polling units.

The REC said the new creations were already in use as voting points across the State and have been upgraded to full polling units in line with the directive of the Commission.

Ending challenges
Hart explained to the forum that besides addressing challenges of overcrowding, and violence at the polling units, voters would no longer trek for hours on election days to far away centres to cast votes as was experienced in past elections.

He said, “the commission’s physical assessment of polling units in the country in 2014 was able to expose the challenges faced by voters in many polling units nationwide. It was observed that most polling units exceeded the designated figure of 500 voters resulting in long queues, wrangling, violence and other electoral offences committed at the polling units during elections.”

According to him, the last time the commission expanded polling units across the country was in 1996, noting “this development informed the need for the restructuring of polling units in order to make it easier for voters to access during electoral activities.”

He disclosed that the new polling units have been verified and approved by the commission’s headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.

Healthy Environment
The REC disclosed that the expanded polling units would enhance the commission’s efforts to uphold Covid-19 protocols and crowd management in keeping with the directive of the Presidential Steering Committee on Covid-19 and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

Hart assured that the 1,527,058 registered voters in Cross River and new registrants would have better experiences at the Pus come 2023 general elections.

“Cross River people will not only experience short queues, but will have improved health and environment in compliance with Covid-19 protocols,” the REC stated.

He said the Continuous Voter Registration exercise would commence from June 28, 2021 and urged those who have turned 18 years as well as people on transfer from other areas in Nigeria to Cross River to avail themselves of the opportunity to register.

Confidence Okwuchi