By Akombo Aondona, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Tuesday 9 September 2025, tasked the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on polling Units statistics gathering for improved infrastructure across the country.
Chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, stated this during a courtesy call by the Statistician-General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, at INEC headquarters in Abuja.
Yakubu said: “I am glad that this meeting is holding at the request of the NBS. Your mandate is to ensure the production and effective management of timely, accurate and reliable statistics. Clearly, the National Statistical System (NSS) which you coordinate is the largest official database on all aspects of national life in Nigeria. For INEC, we have the largest database of adult citizens for the specific purpose of elections and electoral activities in Nigeria protected by law, including compliance with the provisions of the National Data Protection Act.
“As clearly stated by the Statistician-General, today’s meeting focuses on how NBS can leverage on the Commission’s network of locations for electoral services for the benefit of citizens beyond elections which only happen once in four years or as the need arises. You may recall that following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago, we worked in synergy with the Presidential Task Force (PTF) and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) by deploying some of our vehicles which are national assets to facilitate infection prevention and control, contact tracing and surveillance. We are always willing to partner with national agencies within the confines of the law while maintaining our independence. We regard our partnership with NBS in this context,.”
The INEC chairman continued: “Most of our Polling Units and Ward Collation Centres nationwide are located in public buildings, majority of them in State primary and secondary schools. Over the years, stakeholders, especially the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and groups representing the community of persons with disability, have appealed to the Commission to improve these facilities by providing electricity and water for ad hoc staff as well as access facilities such as ramps for citizens with special needs during elections and electoral activities such as voter registration. We urge the NBS to add these concerns to the statistics on the state of public facilities that you periodically publish and in your engagement with constitutional bodies such as the National Economic Council (NEC) in which all State Governors in Nigeria are members. Let these facilities which train our youths at the foundation and intermediate levels of the education system be beneficiaries of the widely proclaimed dividends of democracy.
“The locations of these facilities are contained in our Atlas of Electoral Constituencies. The softcopy of the publication can be downloaded from our website (https://inecnigeria.org/electoral-constituencies-of-the-federation). Similarly, their geographical coordinates can be followed on the link to our Electoral Facilities Locator (EFLoc) also available on our website (https://efloc.inecnigeria.org).
“We welcome this partnership with NBS in keeping with our commitment to synergise with every national institution to strengthen electoral activities in Nigeria.”
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