By Angela Atabo/Diana Omueza
#TrackNigeria: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the FCT, says the commission is still maintaining the existing culture of using
Mrs Ndidi Okafor, Head, Voter Education, Publicity, Gender and Civil Society of INEC said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday.
Okafor advised members of the public to disregard messages on social media that the commission was embarking on fresh ad hoc staff recruitment from the general public.
“The information is false and should be ignored as the commission is still maintaining its culture of using corps members and teachers.
“The commission has an existing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the NYSC. So the bulk of the ad hoc staff will come from the youth service.
“Where there is a short fall, we will revert to our database of ex-corps members for addition. Basically, that is how the recruitment is done.
“All the people that are presiding officers are from the NYSC. In other words, there is nothing new that the commission is doing as we are following our laid down tradition.
“We are using serving youth corps members, because we want to know who is doing the work and then the returning and collation officers would be from the universities’’, she said.
According to Okafor, the decision is to enhance accountability, integrity and transparency that will result in free, fair and credible elections.
“So we disclaimed those messages. We did not put them there, especially those WhatsApp messages,’’ Okafor said.
Okafor also said the collection of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) was still ongoing, adding however, that Feb. 8 deadline for collection was sacrosanct.
According to her, the commission has extended the collection time from between 9 a.m and 3 p.m to between 9 a. m and 4 p.m. daily.
Okafor, therefore, urged residents to take advantage of the adjustment to collect their PVCs.
She said complaints of those whose names were omitted had been noted and sent to the headquarters for corrections.
Okafor assured those affected by the errors that their PVCs would be produced for collection before the deadline.
She also disclosed that the commission had two PVC hotlines: 08153162663 and 08188241666, adding that the public should use them to make complaints and enquiries. (NAN)
