The President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan has assured Nigerans that the ninth Assembly would expedite action on the electoral act amendment bill to entrone a better voting environment for the citizenry

Ekwi Ajide of our Abuja bureau reports that the Speaker who disclosed this at a meeting between the National Assembly Joint Committee on INEC and Electoral Matters and a delegation of INEC, led by its chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, pledged the National Assembly’s support to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in its efforts to provide a secure and safe voting environment, with the ultimate aim of fostering democracy by ensuring electoral integrity and transparency in the conduct of elections.

The Senate President, stressed the need for more polling units to be created to ensure voter safety and a better voting environment in Nigeria.

According to him, the creation of more polling units across the country would facilitate easy access and enable registered voters exercise their civic rights during elections just as he underscored the need for more eligible Nigerians to participate during elections, and charged politicians, political parties and Civil Society Organizations to mobilize registered voters ahead of the forthcoming General Elections in 2023 as according to him, mobilizing more registered voters to participate during elections would improve Nigeria’s electoral process alongside the creation of more polling units by the Commission.
In his presentation, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, while underscoring the need for the creation of additional Polling Units across the country, said the current one hundred and nineteen thousand, nine hundred and seventy three Polling Units were established by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON) in 1996.

According to him, “the problem of voter access to Polling Units has far reaching implications for the quality of elections and democracy in Nigeria as it is tied to a most fundamental aspect of democratic governance which is the right to vote.”

He explained that previous attempts by the Commission to expand voter access to polling units failed hence the creation of “Baby units” to serve the rapidly growing Federal Capital Territory in 2007.

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