INEC And Its Polling Units When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the creation of an additional 30,027 polling units (PUs), the electoral agency in the estimation of many Nigerians did not anticipate the kind of backlash it would receive. That singular announcement no doubt has become the most vexatious controversy in Nigeria’s political cycle as the nation prepares for the forthcoming 2015 general elections. The recent proposal from INEC to establish the additional Polling Units is purportedly to decongest existing units in the bid to ensure that not more than 500 voters will be allocated to a polling unit. This, according to the electoral umpire would help to facilitate logistics and administration of voting in the 2015 elections. At the moment, there are 119,973 polling units scattered across the country. An additional 30,027 would bring the total number of polling units to 150,000. The criteria for distributing the new polling units, according to Professor Jega, are based on the 85 per cent proportionality and 15 per cent equality. Still at the draft stage, the decision if implemented, means that all the states in the country are to get equal 15 per cent increase (that is 121 additional polling units) to the number of polling units they already have, while the remaining 85 per cent will be distributed based on the number of voters in each of the states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. Of the additional 30,027 new polling units, 21,615 were allocated in northern Nigeria, while 8,412 were allocated to the states in the south. This decision has apparently sparked widespread condemnation and name-calling from the southern region which is argued to be more populous than the northern region irrespective of the land mass of the North and also strengthened by the recent insurgency up North. As a result, if this sails through, out of the 30,027, the entire Northern region would be at advantage by 21,615 additional polling units while the Southern region would make do with 8,412 polling units being what would be left. A further breakdown of the figures based on Nigerias six geo-political zones, shows the North West as the biggest gainer with 7,906, followed by the North Central at 6,318, North East at 5,291, South-west at 4,160, South-south at 3,087, the FCT at 1,200 and the South-east as the biggest loser with 1,167. A survey of the approved re-allocation of 150,000 polling units shows that Lagos was leading with 11,565 polling units. Lagos now has 11,023 new units. The new units are proportionally distributed based on the previous number of units. Kano State, which has 10,127 polling units, comes a close second to Lagos. The state has 9,809 new units. Going by this arrangement, one can imagine Abuja having more polling units than the whole of the South-east. That is incredible but sadly true. Rising from a recent meeting, the Southern Peoples Assembly called for the resignation of the Chairman of INEC, Attahiru Jega, over the lopsided allocation of the additional polling units. The pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, also rejected the creation of additional units and passed “a vote of no confidence” on Jega, over his ability to conduct a free and fair election come 2015. Recently, the umbrella body of the North, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) in Kaduna State rejected the allocation of additional polling units by the Independent National Electoral Commission, noting that the exercise was skewed to favour the Southern part of the country. After several fumbling responses by several staff of INEC, Jega held a press conference where he attempted to clarify the issue. First, he noted that the exercise was done to decongest over-crowded PUs and dispersing voters as evenly as possible among all the PUs. This is to be achieved by splitting large PUs such that they have an average of 500 registered voters. Thus, the creation of additional PUs was to cater for the splitting of large polling units as well as new settlements not serviced by any of the existing PUs. In doing this, the exercise also sought to locate PUs more effectively within commuting distances of voters, given that movement is usually restricted on Election Day. Furthermore, the exercise was done to relocate the PUs from ‘in-front of’ private houses, and such other unsuitable places, to public buildings or where this is not possible, to public open spaces where tents can be provided. The exercise also sought to locate the PUs inside classrooms or such other suitable enclosures, in line with international best practices. Jega further explained that the distribution of the additional PUs was based on need, with the parameters listed above. He demonstrated that the determination of the overall number of 150,000 PUs and its distribution across the states was based on the figure of 70,383,427 registered voters and estimated new voters after verifying with the use of Automated Fingerprint Identification Software (AFIS), which eliminated cases of multiple registrations. He explained further that INEC was mindful of the political nature of the exercise, hence it took the decision to ensure that: (i) no state lost any polling unit from its stock of existing PUs, no matter the statistical outlook when the voter population is disaggregated into units of 500 persons; and that (ii) each state got some additional polling units from 15 per cent of the total being newly created on the basis of ‘equality principle’ regardless of the number of PUs already existing in each state in comparison to the voter population. Understanding INECs Rationale On August 12, 2014 the commission reportedly held a meeting, where according to the commissions secretariat director, Ishiaku Gali, the decision was taken for the planned creation of the new polling units. Gali, in a bulletin issued by the commission on August 19, a week after the meeting, said the creation was aimed at decongesting existing polling units across the country. In a later date, Jega announced that the fairest and most logical criterion to use in distributing the 150,000 PUs nationwide is the number of registered voters. The current structure of polling units was created in 1996 by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECOM), which created 120,000 polling units and 8,809 wards known as registration areas. Currently, the INEC has pegged the total number of existing registered voters at 70,383,427 and according to Jega, the exponential growth in Nigerias population, as well as severe demographic shifts resulting from new settlements in major urban areas since 1996, has solely influenced the need for the additional polling units to be created. The Conflicting Figures Jega, while justifying the need for additional units, argued that the rise in population with corresponding increase in the number of eligible voters was clearly manifested during the 2011 voters registration exercise. According to him, at the end of that exercise, having subjected the data gathered in the field through the Automated Fingerprint Identification Software (AFIS) to defect and eliminate duplicate registrants, the commission put the total number of registered voters at 70,383,427. It is true that out of the 30,027 new polling units created by INEC, 21,615 will be in the north (including the FCT) and only 8,412 will be in the south. That is a ratio of 72 to 28. It is also true that with adjustments, the total number of polling units in the south will decrease from 48% to 45% and the total for the north plus FCT will increase from 52% to 55%. All these should skew eyebrows. But before conjuring motives, it is important to ask proper questions, study and interrogate the data. Important questions to ask could include: Why is this so? What are the parameters used? How logical are those parameters? What alternative parameters exist and how sound are they? Using the number of voters per state as a base and equality of states and existing gaps per state as criteria for distribution, INEC, according to Jega allocated the additional 30,027 polling units the following way: North-east, 5,291; North-central, 6,318; North-west, 8.806; FCT, 1,200; South-east, 1,167; South-south, 3,087; and South-west 4,158. Predictably, but unfortunately, some Nigerians have criticised the exercise as lopsided and as designed to favour a region of the country. Among others, they have questioned why FCT will have additional 1,200 units and the entire South-east will have just additional 1,167 and why the north will have more than 70% of the new units. These are legitimate concerns. Before examining these concerns, it is important to state that the assumption fuelling the heat is that the number of polling units will determine electoral outcome. There is no correlation between the two. True, access to polling unit can affect voters’ turnout. But that case will stand only after it has been shown that voters in a particular region have more access to polling units than their counterparts in another. This has not been done. And most importantly, electoral outcomes will be determined by the number of registered voters and voters’ turn-out, not the number of polling units. INEC decided that no state would lose polling units and went ahead to allocate 15% of the new polling units to all the states and FCT on the basis of equality. This means all states irrespective of whether they had more or less than they should have, got 121 additional polling units each. In effect, states that had excess kept their excess and still got additional 121 units each but zero on the basis of need because they had more than they need already. The remaining 85% was allocated on the basis of need, which was determined by how many additional polling units will be needed to have 500 voters per polling unit in each state. This means that the combination method as against need alone represents a loss of 1.3% for the FCT and 0.7% for the North-central; while it represents a gain of 1.7% for the North-west; 6% for the North-east; 9.3% for the South-west; 9.6% for the South-south; and 16.3% for the South-east. Also, while the total number of the new polling units is 55% to 45% in favour of the north, it is also true that the actual number of registered voters is 58% to 42% in favour of the north. Rising also to address the controversial issue, the House of Representatives has revealed plans to probe the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s recent creation of additional 30,000 polling units (PUs) ahead of 2015 polls. The Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon Victor Ogene, in a reaction to the development, assured that the House Committee on Electoral Matters would interface with various aggrieved interest groups with the view to avert crisis ahead of the forthcoming general elections. It is hoped that the parley being proposed by the lawmakers will help to douse the tension already in the country and also help the electoral body explain better to the people instead of just giving out press releases which does not really placate the persons it is intended to educate. Prof. Jega is one man who is un-Nigerian in his disposition to his duty. He is one of the very few who can apologise when he is wrong. It would be safe to assume that he will apologise soon to Nigerians over the recent controversies caused by the recent decision of INEC under his watch. For Nigerians who demand the immediate cancellation of this proposed plan, it is also good that the citizenry would rise up like they have done recently to condemn other infamous policies and decisions without adding the issue of ethnicity and religion. Visit website
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:46:48 +0000
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