The Global Director, Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative, Olasupo Abideen, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address the challenges posed by the relocation of voters to new polling units.
Abideen said unless this was done, a lot of voters whose polling units have been relocated would be disenfranchised on Election Day.
In a statement in Abuja, he said: “With the elections just a few days away, at least seven million registered voters have reportedly been relocated to new polling units, while some polling units have been relocated to new locations. This is to decongest over-populated polling units with more than 750 registered voters. But, again, while this isn’t a bad idea, many voters whose polling units have been relocated to new locations are unaware of this development. This was discovered mainly during the just concluded mock accreditation, where eligible voters approached the designated polling unit for mock accreditation and found they had been relocated to another polling unit.
“This is undoubtedly a potential recipe for disenfranchisement on Election Day, where citizens will leave their homes and spend hours in the queue waiting to vote before discovering they are in the wrong polling unit.”