Additional polling units proposed by the Independent National Electoral Commission recently, barely six months to the 2015 general election, have been generating noxious debates. A polling unit, according to INEC, is where a citizen can register to cast his vote. And, in doing so, a voter is advised to select a polling unit close to his or her area of residence due to the usual restricted movement on an election day. But as inconsequential as this appears in the electoral process, the country’s politics is boiling over the electoral body’s redefinition of the polling units across the country. INEC should handle the controversy with utmost care to regain the confidence and trust of all stakeholders.
Four out of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones have read sinister political motives into the arrangement, triggering alarm bells that all may not be well with planning for the polls. Out of the 30,000 new units, the three zones in the North got 21,615 units as against 8,412 ceded to the South. As a result, aggrieved stakeholders in the South have asked the Chairman of INEC, Attahiru Jega, to resign.
In theory, the location of polling stations is primarily to ensure that they are as close as possible to the voters’ residence; have a minimum/maximum size; serve the need to maintain the secrecy of the ballot and to perform complex electoral operations; are accessible to all voters; are in an ideologically neutral site in order not to discourage the free expression of the vote and have adequate logistical facilities. In some environments, the need to establish separate polling stations for women on religious grounds is also considered.
What really informed Jega’s figures in practice? Some polling units, he says, contain more than the required maximum 500 voters; just as he underscores the need for “severe demographic shift”, or population pressure in new settlements, to be taken into consideration. “The exercise was done to ease congestion of polling centres,” he stresses. It seems that under this constraint, the general elections in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 were conducted, hence, the necessity to increase polling units from the existing 120,000 to 150,000.
However, the harder the commission tries to justify its action, the more political interest groups sense perfidy in its logic. For instance, it is difficult to comprehend its judgement in allocating 1,200 new units to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, whereas only 1,167 units were shared among the five South-East states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.
Leap in demographics is not peculiar to certain sections of the country as INEC’s permutation suggests. Given the country’s present security challenges, which have forced many Nigerians to relocate from the North-East and North-West zones to the South, it beggars description that the North-West alone has additional 7,906 polling units, which nearly equal the 8,412 units for the entire South-West, South-South and South-East zones. Though in functioning democracies, nobody cares a hoot about the geography of polling units, but their accessibility. Here, a political storm of this kind re-ignites the country’s primordial cleavages.
Public confidence in INEC’s ability to play its role is critical now. No matter its justification for the action, the timing for increasing the polling units is patently wrong, just as it does violence to the political sensibilities of not a few. Amid the howls of protest and acrimony, at least one point is clear: the criteria used in proposing the new polling platforms lack logic.
As an umpire, the commission must be sensitive to anything that is capable of dragging the country back. Its main goal should be how to foster public confidence and participation in the democratic process, by promoting integrity, involvement and effectiveness. Since returning to civilian rule in 1999, according to the United States-based National Democratic Institute, the quality of elections had progressively declined in Nigeria. The resultant effect? The people have had little to celebrate.
But as the 2015 poll approaches, INEC is off to a poor start. We are contending with these trial issues because INEC is not doing enough to simplify and modernise the electoral process. It is shameful that INEC has not moved us to the point where voter registration, for instance, can be done anytime and through several methods and voting does not necessarily have to be a stressful exercise. Today, most electoral bodies around the world use new technologies with the aim of improving the electoral process. All of these efforts aim at ensuring the credibility of the democratic process and the reliability of election results.
Cool heads and measured thinking are needed in sorting out the delicate issue. INEC must not only be fair and just, but it must be seen by all to be so. Jega’s realisation that his office, is arguably, the most sensitive and unenviable in a country cast in the furnace of tribal, sectarian and cultural divisions; and mutual distrust, should make him think twice or retrace his steps.
There is perhaps a way in which the situation can be rescued. The commission should cancel the jumbled figures and keep to the existing polling units.
