Breaking: INEC closes 593 polling centres a week to FCT Council elections

As the days draw nearer for the Federal Capital Territory, FCT Area Council elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said the exercise will not take place in some polling units.

The electoral umpire explained that having expanded the centre from 564 to additional 2,260, about 593 are without registered voters.

Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this while addressing the FCT Stakeholders’ during a meeting organised by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), in Abuja.

According to Yakubu , “The Commission has decided that no election will take place at the polling units without registered voters. No materials have been produced for these units and no personnel will be deployed to them. However, voting will take place in all the other polling units. For congested polling units, the Commission will deploy more than one BVAS to facilitate a speedy accreditation of voters.

He stated that, “At this juncture, I wish to draw your attention to a few areas where the Commission needs the support of all stakeholders in the FCT. You may recall that early last year, INEC succeeded in expanding voter access to polling units for the first time in 25 years in spite of the apparent expansion of the voter population and emergence of new settlements. From just 562 polling units,

“the Commission established additional 2,260 units and relocated some of them from congested locations to proximate but underserved areas. We gave voters the opportunity to transfer to some of the new polling units. Unfortunately, voters did not take advantage of this opportunity as we had expected in all cases.

Furthermore “After the period for substitution and withdrawal of candidates as provided by law, the Commission has listed 473 candidates sponsored by 14 political parties for the forthcoming elections. In all, 110 candidates (Chair and Vice Chair) are vying for the leadership of the six Area Councils while 363 candidates are competing for 62 councillorship positions.

“Detailed analysis of the candidates by Area Councils, political parties, gender, age and educational qualifications has already been uploaded to our website for public information.”