*Commission To Begin Voter Registration June 28

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Rivers State, says it has concluded the process that saw to the expansion of polling units across the 23 Local Government Areas in Rivers State, while announcing the commencement of Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) from Monday, June 28, 2021.

INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Rivers State, Obo Effanga, announced this on Saturday, May 8, 2021 during a Stakeholders’ Interactive Session in Port Harcourt.

Speaking at the event, which had in attendance, the National Commissioner Supervising Bayelsa, Edo and Rivers States; May Agbamuche-Mbu, as well as Rivers State Commissioner of Police; Friday Eboka, who doubles as the State Chairman of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES), and Civil Liberty Organization (CLO), Effanga stated that the Polling Units in Rivers State have been increased from 4,442 to 6866.

He affirmed that the exercise was necessary given that it was coming 25 years since the last time new polling units were created in Nigeria.

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“At the end of the field work in Rivers State, we converted 2424 Voting Points to Polling Units. When this is added to the current figure of 4442 Polling Units; Rivers State will have a total of 6866 Polling Units for its current voter population of 3,215,273.”

Explaining further on the due diligence of the expansion exercise, Effanga noted that “in carrying out the conversion of Voting Points to Voting Units, we deployed technology, specifically the Geographical Information System (GIS) to plot with specificity, the location of all our polling units.”

He added that “the outcome of the fieldwork has since been subjected to verification by a team from the INEC Headquarters and the state office to ensure that the outcomes reflect our guideline.”

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The REC seized the opportunity to equally announce that the Commission will not rest, as mechanisms were already in place to commence the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) from June 28, 2021.

For their part, stakeholders who were present bore their mind on the performance index of the commission with regards to the Polling Units expansion exercise.

On his part, Chairman of the Rivers State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Desmond Akawor commended INEC for a job well done, advising the commission to give consideration to the need for increase in logistics, especially, in the area of security since there were more polling units.

Akawor also harped on the need for the full elections timetable to be out in time to avoid a fire brigade approach to elections by political parties, while calling on INEC to continue mounting pressure on the National Assembly to pass the amendments to the Electoral Act into law so as to have the right framework for conducting the next election.

A representative of Isaac Ogbobula, the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Celestine Akpobari queried why his party was not officially invited for the interactive forum despite the Supreme Court verdict recognizing Isaac Ogbobula as the authentic Chairman of the APC in Rivers State.

Akpobari as well raised concerns on why Khana LGA with 19 wards would have 64 polling units while Obio/Akpor LGA with 17 wards now has 852 polling units, describing the process as a bid to allocate polling units to Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike since Obio/Akpor was his LGA.

Other stakeholders who spoke included the Rivers State Chairman of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Young Ayo-Tamuno, who advocated for the commencement of comprehensive orientation of the populace before the next elections.

Also speaking, the Chairman of Persons Living with Disabilities in Rivers Sate, Kie Obomanu called on INEC to make special preparations for his members so as not disenfranchise them in future elections.

Responding to the concerns raised, Effanga said that efforts were already being made to improve on the logistics for elections, stressing that the concluding exercise of polling units’ expansion was a sign of early preparations for the elections for which the commission would not relent in.

Clarifying further, Effanga explained that “all political parties were invited for the forum and if there is anyone that did not receive the invite, it must have been occasioned by an act of omission for which we apologize.”

The REC also clarified that Voting Points were not converted to Voting Units out of ethnic or sundry parameters but strictly in adherence to the commission’s guidelines for which the threshold was clearly defined.

He reiterated that the population of registered voters in a given area was the major factor that influenced creation of Polling Units and not number of wards.