More than 1.5 million polling unit agents will be deployed for the 2023 General Election in Nigeria, according to a document released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has the largest number of agents, with 176,588 people manning 176,974 polling units nationwide.
This is followed closely by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which has 176,223 registered agents and the New Nigeria People’s Party with 176,200 agents.
The Labour Party (LP) has 134,874 agents which could be boosted by an additional 96,043 agents of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), making 230,917.
On Monday, the ADC announced its endorsement of the presidential candidate of the LP, Peter Obi.
Since that announcement, fliers of ADC candidates for federal legislative elections have been posted online with pictures of Obi.
The 18 parties that will be on the ballot in the General Election are deploying 145,393 polling unit agents in Kano, making it the state with the largest number of party agents.
Lagos comes a distant second with 98,646 agents.
Summary of Polling Unit and Collation Centre Agents Submitted by Political Parties for the 2023 General Election#NigeriaDecides2023 pic.twitter.com/cmr2B4n7F7
— INEC Nigeria (@inecnigeria) February 20, 2023
All the parties will also have 68,057 collation agents in registration areas, wards, local governments, and states.
Summary of Polling Unit and Collation Centre Agents Submitted by Political Parties for the 2023 General Election (2) pic.twitter.com/6huRu0rQLz
— INEC Nigeria (@inecnigeria) February 20, 2023
The polling unit agents monitor the voting while the collation agents supervise the counting of votes for their parties.
Twenty-seven party agents will be at the Abuja International Conference Center (ICC) which will serve as the National Collation Center for the elections.
Eleven of the parties each have two agents at the ICC, Five others have an agent each, and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) have no agent at the National Collation Center.
