By Tony Adibe
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it would engage over 17,000 ad-hoc staff for duties in the forthcoming general elections in Enugu State.
There’s a general belief that the commission would, as in previous polls, use corps members as its major ad-hoc staff. However, many other Nigerians may have to join the ad-hoc staff to make up the huge numerical ad-hoc staff needed for the upcoming elections.
NewsBits recalls that INEC has scheduled Feb. 25 for the Presidential and National Assembly elections as well as March 11 for the Governorship and State Assembly elections. The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Enugu State, Dr Chukwuemeka Chukwu, disclosed this to newsmen in Enugu on Tuesday.
Dr Chukwu stated that currently INEC has 4,145 polling units across 260 political wards in 17 local government areas in Enugu State. According to him, each polling unit would be manned by three or four persons as follows – Assistant Presiding Officer (APO)-1, APO-2, PO-1 and PO-2 as well as at least a supervisor.
He said that getting 17,000 PLUS ad-hoc staff is not here. He explained: “This added number of ad-hoc staff, unlike previous elections, is due to the newly created polling units, which must be accommodated and provided for. The expansion of the polling units, which led to creation of more polling units, was done by INEC about two years ago.
“It created more polling units with the purpose of making the polling units less numerous and closer (more accessible) to the vast majority of voters in localities in the country. However, each of the new polling units is close to the old ones, it was carved out or created from; within the same neighbourhood and local registration area of INEC.”
NewsBits recalls that INEC, about three months ago, opened an online recruitment portal for ad-hoc staff nationwide. Also, the commission equally conducted screening for those who successfully applied on the online recruitment portal about a fortnight (two weeks) ago in various states, including Enugu State.
