[2015: NORTH VS SOUTH (1): INEC GIVES NORTH FRESH ADVANTAGE]

In what many are describing as a gambit with the potential for dangerous and unimaginable consequences, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, led by Professor Attahiru Jega, may have set itself up for opprobrium from a section of the Nigerian nation. Its recently announced 30,000 new Polling Units, PUs, has been distributed across the country. Yet, in a curious twist of logic, the cleaning of the Voter Register, VR, which has seen many states in the northern part of Nigeria lose ‘GHOST VOTERS’ in their millions, have been allocated a whopping 21,615 (twenty one thousand, six hundred and fifteen) PUs, as against a meagrely 8,412 (eight thousand, four hundred and twelve). This exclusive report brings out the dangerous game of political conspiracy that has been on at INEC and which Sunday Vanguard has carefully followed in the last two years. The findings are mind-boggling as there are cogent and verifiable reasons to suggest that the ever acrimonious North/South dichotomy may have become a guiding principle of administrative philosophy at INEC, a philosophy that may at once pour cold water on the hard-earned integrity of Jega. Therefore, how this academic of international repute got himself into this bind remains confounding. GENERALLY The devil is in the details. On paper, the provision and allocation of new Polling Units, PUs numbering over 30,000, may be desirable – at least in the light of the congestion at polling stations during the 2011 general elections. But this provision is only desirable in so far as it reflects the realities on ground. What has happened, however, is that Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, led by Professor Attahiru Jega, has insinuated itself into a dangerous political game which defies simple logic. After carrying out a cleaning exercise to sanitise the Voter Register, VR, an exercise which has reduced the total number of validly registered voters in the country, the selfsame INEC has gone ahead to allocate its new 30,000 PUs in such a manner that some states that had already lost so much to ghost registration still ended up getting more PUs News by Vanguard Sunday 24|08|2014