Francis Sadhere
Delta State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship aspirant in 2007 general election, Chief Sunny Onuesoke has faulted the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Atahiru Jega over creation of new polling units saying that it is skewed to favour the North.
Onuesoke who made the allegation while addressing journalist in Warri, Delta State said the imbalance in the creation of the new polling booths which is tilted in favour of the North against the South could be part of a master plan to manipulate next year’s elections, adding that the exercise might be a ploy for the North to continue to dominate the South in the post-Goodluck Jonathan era.
Onuesoke who queried the yardstick which Jega used in creating the polling units said INEC Boss arrangement had tilted the polling units in favour of the North with 22,000 polling units as against the South 12,000 polling units.
Onuesoke who is the Country Director of Network for Good Governance (N4GG) argued: “If 500 voters per unit is the yardstick, it would have inadvertently tilted the balance of over 20 million voters for the North against only 4 million voters for the South. This is a sort of constitutionally institutionalize stratage to always produce the President from the North after the post-Jonathan era. This is not acceptable to Southern stakeholders in the political turfs,” just as he called on Jega to cancel it.
Onuesoke who said there is no basis for the creation of the new polling units pointed out that investigation had shown that most riverine areas and creeks with difficult terrains in the South-South geo political zone are more populated than areas in the North where the new voting units were created.
He said; “I wonder what is the rationale behind giving sparsely populated areas in the North that are motor able more polling units than heavily populated areas in the South-South that are difficult to access even with speed boats?”
The PDP stalwart further argued that from the screening of voters’ register, it has shown that the actual voting population is down by almost 20 million and a chunk of this difference is from North.
“So, why give the area more polling units where there would not be voters? What then happens to the voting materials already produced?” he queried.
He also faulted the lopsidedness of composition of INEC Board of Directors which he alleged is tilted in favour of North who had 85 percent of the members in the board.
