The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the proposed introduction of additional 30,000 polling units in Nigeria was as a result of the clamour by registrars for polling units to be sited closer to their settlements.

In a telephone interview on Monday, the Director, Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, said that the increase in the number of polling units would also ensure that accreditation and voting take place much quicker than it used to be.

“We concluded that we need to increase this in such a way that not more than about 500 people should be in each polling unit. The process is only being reviewed in order to capture a lot of people who have not been captured in some of the states where the INEC had held the registration exercise,” he said.

In a draft for the planned increase in polling units, the INEC said the distribution would be made based on 85 per cent proportionality and 15 per cent equality.

Explaining the modalities, Mr Osaze-Uzzi said that all states would get a 15 per cent increase in the number of polling units while the 85 per cent would be distributed based on the number of voters in each state.

However, the figures in the draft have drawn criticism from people in some regions that felt short-changed in the distribution.

As contained in the draft, the proposed 30,000 polling units allocation gave North 21,615 South 8,412, North West 7,906, North-East 5,291 North Central 6,318, FCT 1,200, South-West 4,160, South-South 3,087 and South-East, 1,167.

The rationale behind the allocation to the FCT and that given to the South-East has been queried. The allocation to the FCT is higher than that of the South East which has more than two states, a development INEC said was due to the increase in the population in the FCT.

Mr Osaze-Uzzi said that when the state’s allocations are looked at individually, the number of polling units in the South East States would be higher.

“We decided to do a uniform thing by creating new units and the commission had made provision to ensure that no community will lose its polling units, .

“All the states are to get a uniform increase of 15 per cent polling units from the proposed polling units. Each state gets 121 additional polling units while the 85 per cent would be based on the number of registered voters,” he said, explaining the process.