Nigeria: INEC to recruit 20,000 election staff for Edo governorship election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on August 13 has said it would deploy almost 20,000 election staff for the conduct of the forthcoming Edo governorship election scheduled for September 19, according to a news report by Today.

Prof. Bolade Eyinla, the Technical Advisor to INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said this during a virtual meeting with journalists in Edo organized by the International Press Council (IPC) on the role of journalists in Edo election.

Eyinla has said that the recruitment of the 20, 000 election staff would be done through INEC’s portal which he said had been opened.

He said that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members serving in the state would constitute a larger percentage of the number, adding that the remaining number would be selected from the INEC ad-hoc recruitment portal.

"The youth corps members will constitute the larger percentage because they will be deployed mostly as presiding officers. The online recruitment is essential to create a database of election workers toward the conduct of the election.

"Also ongoing is the training of all security personnel to be deployed for the election. INEC has also come up with a code of conduct and rules of engagement for the security agencies.

"The code of conduct and rules of engagement will be distributed to all the security personnel deployed for the election to guide them properly."

Eyinla added that the commission had designed an election policy within the context of the conduct of the election in a pandemic.

“We are aware that as of today, Edo has 2,399 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and recorded a total of 100 deaths."