Days after a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered that the Independent National Commission, INEC register a new political party, the electoral body yesterday said it was yet to receive the judgment papers.
The court had last week directed the commission to register the Young Democratic Party, YDP. Consequently, the YDP asked INEC to include its name, logo and candidates on the ballot paper for the general elections slated for March 28 and April 11.
The party was not listed among parties contesting the 2015 general elections until the court ordered INEC to issue it a certificate of registration.
Following the judgement, the leadership of the party is insisting that INEC must print new ballot papers, to include its name and candidacy or shift the election dates.
However, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Kayode Idowu, said the commission is yet to take a decision on the matter as it was yet to receive the court papers.
He also described as ignorance insinuation in some quarters that INEC has created additional polling units through the back door.
“There are 119,973 polling units in the country; and just as we did in 2011, we broke down large polling units into voting points.
That is what we wanted to avoid in 2015 when we wanted to create additional polling units, because the problem with voting units is that when a polling unit is large and you break it down in to voting units, it will still be at the same location where as if you created new polling units the location will differ.
“The voting units will ensure you do not find about 2,000 people queuing (at a unit) so we break them down to a maximum of 700 for the voting units. But you will still have all the 2,000 people there be cause it is the same polling unit.
“But if we had created new polling units, many people who may have moved away to maybe new settlements that did not exist before the creation of the polling unit could be going to different location for voting,” Idowu said.
He further explained that with the splitting of polling units, there are nearly 155,000 polling units and voting points, adding that the voting guideline stipulates that no polling unit should have more than 700 persons.
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