By Laleye Dipo in Minna
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Niger State has reshuffled its staff ahead of Saturday’s governorship and House of Assembly elections.
Virtually all the ad hoc staff and electoral officers were moved to other locations where they would supervise the election on Saturday.
Prof. Sam Egwu, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), who disclosed this in Minna while addressing a forum organised by the Ministry of Information Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) on the conduct of the 2019 general election, said the movement of the staff was to achieve better efficiency in the discharge of their assignments.
“They are not sacked. I don’t have power to sack them but I have power to move them round. I will take responsibility for anything that happens as a result of this,” he said.
He however said that some of the electoral officers were not very diligent in the discharge of their assignments during the presidential and National Assembly elections.
“Some of the staff demonstrated rude behaviour. Some could not operate the card reader machines or fill the result sheets properly and this action affected the voting process,” he said.
Egwu said 334 supervisory polling officials, 3,185 presiding officers and 15,356 assistant presiding officers were engaged for the last election.
He disclosed that the commission would conduct a refresher training for the ad hoc staff on election duty procedures and their roles before and during the election before Saturdays polls.
Earlier, the facilitator of the programme, Alhaji Mohammed Mohammed, called on politicians to submit themselves to regular elections as essential element of democracy.
Furthermore, he said the objective of the event was to apply technicalities which include: voters turnout, security preparedness, ad hoc personnel’s readiness, logistics, availability of sensitive materials to improve on the conduct of a free, fair and credible election.
