Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Oyo state, has trained its staff on the state of voters access to Polling Units (PUs) ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The State INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Mutiu Agboke, who said this on Monday in Ibadan, said the training was to address the challenges been faced by voters to access polling units during elections.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was specifically held for INEC’s head of departments, electoral officers and assistants electoral officers.
Agboke said the problems were so multifaceted that the commission determined to solve it nationally so that there would be no claim of been left out in any part of the country,
“What we are doing is to x-ray the paper that we have with our staff, particularly those manning our offices in the local government areas and their assistants.
“These officers are been taken through the process to understand the issues involve when we say what are the challenges faced by voters in accessing polling units.
“We are making them to know the issues involved, that where there are places where voters cannot access the polling unit based on the terrain, we need to look at it.
“Also where there are places polling units are sited, in a domain or community or terrain of politician/political fathers; INEC will look at it.
“We are also looking at whereby we have excessive crowed in a particular location that make it very difficult for voters.” he stated.
The REC said that effect of inability of voters to access polling unit would cause voter apathy, adding that “apathy is what the commission wants to remove”.
He urged the participants to maximise the opportunity of the workshop to rub minds on better ways to improve their performances.
In her presentation, Mrs Wunmi Balogun, the Head of Department, ICT, INEC Oyo State, said that Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) would resume in the second quarter of the year.
Balogun added that the commission would be using INEC Voters Enrollment Devices for the CVR instead of the Direct Data Capturing Machine.
