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Senator representing Anambra Central, Victor Umeh, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to recruit and train more permanent personnel and gradually reduce its reliance on ad hoc staff ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Umeh, who is seeking re-election on the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) platform, made the call on Friday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
He argued that moving electoral personnel from one state to another at the request of authorities could undermine public confidence in the electoral process.
“So if you continue to move electoral personnel from one state to another place on the request of authorities, That type of juggling erodes confidence. You cannot be doing such a thing,” Umeh said.
The senator further alleged that attempts were sometimes made during elections to deploy ad hoc personnel who would “serve the purpose of certain powerful people” in different locations.
“No, it has happened even before,” he said when asked about alleged movements of electoral personnel.
“Yes, there are movements. If you put your ears on the ground, you know, you see, because I have been part of this process for a lot of time, for a long time now. I know that when election comes, efforts are made to put ad hoc staff that will serve the purpose of certain powerful people in various locations. And there are people who do this. We have warned consistently.”
INEC maintains a permanent workforce but also recruits, trains and deploys temporary personnel for specific elections. These include Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers, Supervisory Presiding Officers and Registration Area Centre managers.
Collation and Returning Officers, who handle the collation of results at higher levels and, in some cases, declare election winners, are also often recruited from outside the commission, including academics from universities.
Umeh commended INEC for its ongoing recruitment exercise but urged the commission to use it to strengthen its permanent workforce and reduce dependence on temporary electoral workers.
“I’m happy that INEC is doing recruitment now. INEC should be able to recruit people and find a way to do away with ad hoc staff,” he said.
He said permanent personnel would be more accountable and better positioned to receive continuous training than temporary workers who leave after an election.
“An ad hoc staff is a temporary staff. He comes on duty, does what he wants to do, makes money, and goes away. But officers of the commission, if they are able to have enough manpower because we have appropriated a lot of money for the commission they should be able to increase their manpower, you know.
“And at this time, employ a lot of people and train them, so that at least at the collation level, it will not be going to tertiary institutions to bring university professors to come and do collation and become returning officers.”
Umeh said INEC should develop its own pool of trained personnel for collation and returning duties so that responsibility for the electoral process remains within the commission.
“INEC should be able to have its own trained personnel to be collation officers and be returning officers, so that anything that happens starts and ends with INEC. Not going to one university go to University of Sokoto, bring the professor from there, put him in Anambra State to be returning officer,” he said.
