INEC converts 1,750 voting points to polling units in Katsina, says REC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has converted 1,750 voting points in Katsina state to polling units, according to Alhaji Jibril Ibrahim-Zarewa, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner.

Ibrahim-Zarewa told a stakeholder meeting in Katsina on Wednesday, that the commission upgraded and converted the voting points to full fledged polling units after wide consultations.

“Thus, Katsina with 4,902 polling units has an additional 1,750, making it a total of 6,652. It is to be noted that the 4,902 created in 1996 will remain in their known locations.

“With the exception of three in Danja the one in Dutsi Local Government Areas, respectively, moved to other polling units at appropriate locations.

“The new 1,750 polling units will either be moved to unserved or underserved areas. However, a number of them will remain at their known locations of the polling units from which they were created.

“One area has a large number of voters and there are adequate spaces to accommodate more than one polling unit,” he said.

The INEC commissioner, however, said that registered voters were expected to initiate their transfer, as new polling units have no registered voters since the commission had not moved any person.

“A process of populating them has been worked out by INEC, under the continuous voter registration exercise.

“All the polling units, both new and old have been put in the INEC’s website and can be accessed online,” he said.

Ibrahim-Zarewa said that INEC had fixed June 28, to commence the voter registration nationwide, and in Katsina, necessary measures had put in place to conduct the exercise only in the areas without security challenges.

He appealed to politicians and other stakeholders to point out areas with security issues for necessary action to be taken, adding that the essence of the exercise was to give those who had attained the age of 18 and have not registered previously to do so.

The REC added that registered voters who wanted to transfer their voting locations, from one place to another, could do so, as well as those with any problem to resolve it.