The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC is to expand the existing polling units in Osun State to create access to the electorates.
To this end, the commission is to convert the existing voting points to full fledged poling units.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Osun State, Mr Segun Agbaje gave the information during an election’s stakeholders meeting on voter access to polling units in Nigeria, held at the INEC State headquarters, Osogbo
Mr Agbaje stated that the conversion of the 753 voting points would be completed after the submission of its report to its national headquarters in Abuja, where the commission would collate similar effort conducted nationwide.
He said most of newly established polling units were placed in open places due to absence of schools and other public structure that could accommodate the polling units.
Mr Agbaje also announced that polling units would not be in places of worship, palaces and privates places of residence which had always been the practice.
The Osun electoral umpire, who noted that some communities were still being disenfranchised because no polling units and centers close to them, pledged that something would be done.
In a good will message, the Osun State Commissioner of Police, Mr Olawale Olokode commended INEC for expanding voter access to polling units, noting that the inadequacy has been responsible voters’ apathy and fatique.
Mr Olokode appealed to all stakeholders to be circumspect with information they give and receive as he maintained that most of the threat to security in the country were due to misinformation.
In a reaction, the Chairman of the Joint Association of People with Disability, Southwest region, Mr Kehinde Onitiju also appreciated INEC, but appealed for more efforts to create access for people living with disabilities.
Similarly, the representative of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mr Omolaoye Akintola called for an amendment in the electoral Act that would mandate the creation of additional polling units every ten years.
His counterpart in the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr Bola Ajao urged the electoral commission to embark on aggressive voter education on the new development, so as to prevent rumours and misinformation.
With the conversion of the 753 voting centers to polling, Osun State now has a total of 3,763 polling units.
Adenitan
