Nigeria’s Electoral Problem Is Beyond Expanding Our Polling Units – PDP

Lagos State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has come out to urge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to focus on election integrity, not the expansion of polling units ahead of 2023 polls.

Lagos PDP Spokesman, Taofik Gani recently revealed this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, it is the duty of the electoral commission to concentrate on directing its efforts at achieving robust electoral reform that would make the votes of Nigerians count 3 years from now.

He added that the issues of INEC and acceptable election processes are beyond polling units, therefore creating more units will not solve anything.

His words, “The issues of INEC and acceptable election processes are beyond polling units. Creating 100 PUs on a street won’t change the integrity problem in our elections.”

“Why can’t we have electronic voting linked to voters’ ID and the election can be done online.”

What do you think?

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is a major contemporary political party in Nigeria. Its policies generally lie towards the centre-right of the political spectrum. It won every Presidential election between 1999 and 2011, and was until the 2015 elections, the governing party in the Fourth Republic although in some cases, amid a few controversial electoral circumstances. Currently, PDP controls 14 states out of 36 states in Nigeria.

In 1998 the PDP in its first presidential primary election held in Jos, Plateau State, North Central Nigeria norminated former military leader Olusegun Obasanjo who had just been released from detention as political prisoner as the presidential candidate in the elections of February 1999, with Atiku Abubakar (Governor-Elect of Adamawa State and a former leading member of the Social Democratic Party) as his running mate. They won the presidential election and were inaugurated 29 May, 1999.

The longtime slogan of the People’s Democratic Party has been “Power to the people”. During the party’s National Convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on 21 May 2016, David Mark, a former President of the Senate of Nigeria, introduced “Change the change” as the party’s campaign slogan for the 2019 general elections.

In the 2019 elections, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and PDP presidential candidadate and his party rejected the outcome of the elections as INEC was yet to conclude the process and make an official pronouncement. On the 25th of February, PDP National Party Chair, Prince Uche Secondus alleged that the result as announced by INEC were incorrect.