*Tasks RECs on voters’ sensitization
By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja
The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN, has ordered that some of the commission’s staff in Kuje Area Council and Kabusa ward in the Municipal Council, whose actions caused logistic delay during last Saturday’s Abuja Area Councils’ elections be queried.
Similarly, the commission has directed that the transporter that caused some delay in Kwali Area Council will be blacklisted.
The INEC Chairman, while speaking at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) on Wednesday, pointedly declared that 45 percent poll opening on election day at 8:30 am fell short of standards.
In the words of Amupitan, “Let me repeat what I said at my meeting with staff: there will be consequences for any act capable of sabotaging the process and 45% opening at 8:30 am is not satisfactory. It fell short of our standards.
“It undermines public confidence. And it will not be tolerated. We have identified some of the staff in Kuje Area Council and Kabusa Ward in the Municipal that caused logistic delay and I have directed that they should be queried.
“In addition, the transporter that caused some delay in Kwali Area Council will be blacklisted. “We are still reviewing our transport logistics model for effective performance”, he said.
Continuing, he said, “Another area that requires frank discussion is logistics and punctuality. According to our Election Operations Dashboard, only 45% of polling units in the FCT opened by 8:30 am. Although we achieved 100% by 10:00 am, the initial delay is unacceptable”.
The INEC Chairman has therefore directed all Resident Electoral Commissioners to intensify voter education and sensitization in their respective states.
According to him, “Voter awareness must not be episodic. It must be continuous. Citizens must be encouraged to verify their polling unit details well ahead of the elections”.
Amupitan further addressed the issue of ‘voter migration’ in Abuja, and denied that it was voter migration during the election.
He explained that INEC had in 2022, carried expansion of voters’ access to polling units.
According to him, there is over 56,000 additional polling units were created nationwide, which brought the total from 119,972 to over 176,000.
His words, “In order to populate the newly created units, many of which initially had zero registered voters, about 6.7 million voters were redistributed from approximately 12,000 congested polling units to new 17,000 less congested ones across the country in 2022”.
He disclosed that in the FCT alone, 411 polling units were decongested, and about 580,000 voters were redistributed to 1,156 polling units.
“That exercise was carried out four years ago in 2022, not in 2026. The same voters in FCT voted in those polling units during the 2023 general election,” he explained.
He added that during the mock accreditation and election on February 7 in the FCT, “several voters turned out, but they could not vote mainly because their polling units were not among the 289 out of 2822 selected for that exercise.”.
