The Labour Party (LP) on which platform Peter Obi is contesting the Saturday, February 25 Presidential election has not registered 41,732 polling agents to man the 176,606 polling units.
This is according to the final record of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which scheduled February 25 for the election to pick the next Nigeria’s President.
INEC said that Nigeria has 176,846 polling units and that elections would not take place in 240 polling units which it said have no registered voters.
Based on the figures released on Monday by the electoral umpire, 18 registered political parties registered 1,574,301 polling units agents.
A breakdown of the political parties and their polling units showed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has the highest number of polling agents with 176,588 with no agents for 258 polling booths.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), registered 176,233, with no agents for 613 polling booths while the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) of Rabiu Kwankwaso has 176,200 polling units with no agents for 646 polling units.
Out of the big four, the Obi’s Labour Party came last with 134,874 polling agents without agents that will man 41,732 polling units.
According to INEC, all the political parties nominated 68,057 collation agents and 27 agents for the National Collation Centre.
State by state breakdown shows that Kano has the highest number of party polling agents with 145,393 due to the high number of local government areas, that is 44, which INEC said were agents of the PDP, APC and NNPP.
Lagos came second with 98,646 polling agents from three political parties of PDP, APC and Labour Party while Rivers had 79,795 polling agents.
The Labour Party’s inability to register agents to man the polling units is believed to have raised anxiety among some supporters of the party.
While they hope the assurance given by INEC that the election would be transparent, especially with the use of BVAS, the Chief Spokesman of the party, Yunusa Tanko said there’s nothing to worry about.
He said: “while we were trying to fill those agents with INEC, the time closed down on us.
“What we are trying to do is to have independent polling agents to man those units. So there’s no cause for alarm.”
