New settlements, other areas get 770 additional polling units in Gombe

In its determination to enable access to polling units during elections, Gombe State office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the will expand the existing electoral polling units with an additional 770 new ones across the state.

The disclosure was made by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Alhaji Umar Ibrahim during a stakeholders meeting held in Gombe over the weekend.

The REC explained that new settlements are among areas that would most benefit from the expansion of the new polling units which were last created over 25 years ago shortly after the state was created in 1996.

He further explained that the meeting was on the expansion of voters access to polling units held at the Conference Hall of the Federal Secretariat, Gombe.

Umar Ibrahim also said that the expansion became necessary following embarrassing challenges that included congestion at polling units due to growth in population, long distance between polling units which affects voter turnout among other reasons during elections.

According to him, “it is worthy to note that the current polling unit structure used by the commission was created since 1996, which is almost three decades now.”

He explained that during these three decades, stakeholders have witnessed a number of embarrassing challenges that affect the health and safety of voters and election officials.

The REC stated further that after a successful expansion exercise that took the staff of the commission into the field, Gombe State will now have an additional 770 polling units more to the existing 2,218 making a total of 2,988 polling units in the state.

In his words, “this represents a percentage increase of about 35 percent which comes very timely and handy as the commission plans to roll out Continuous Voter Registration early next month.”

Backing the commission’s action, he pointed out that, “the commission evoked the powers conferred on it by section 42 of the electoral Act 2010 (as amended) and adopted to expand access to polling units for improved electoral services.”

Many party representatives at the meeting expressed their happiness over the new development and promised to go back and enlighten their party members on new developments in INEC.

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