New registrants for the forthcoming elections have chosen for security reasons to avoid some polling units and have indicated interest to be transferred away from the units where high rate of violence and insurgency have occurred in the past years thus prompting the Independent National Electoral Commission to cancel about two hundred and forty polling units which will not be used as centres in the coming election. .
The INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu explained the reason for the action claiming that when new voters register in Nigeria, they are allowed to choose a polling centre, adding that most people will prefer to choose the nearest to where they live because movement restriction by security agencies on election day.
Mahmood Yakubu told political party leaders at a meeting in Abuja recently that the agency had increased the total number of polling stations to 176,846 from 119,973 two years ago.
None of the more than eight million voters registered between 2021 and 2022 chose to vote in 240 of the new centres, while those already registered showed no interest in being moved to the new centres, he said.
“No new registrants chose the polling units and no voters indicated interest to transfer to them … mainly for security reasons,” Yakubu said.
According to Yakubu, most of the affected areas are the northeastern Taraba state, where Islamist insurgents have carried out attacks, and southeastern Imo state, the hotbed of separatist and gang violence, adding that the areas have the highest number of polling units where voting will not take place.