INEC says over 9,000 ad hoc staff recruited for FCT election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has now recruited the required number of ad hoc staff for the April 9 Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council elections.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the FCT, Prof. Jacob Jatau disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.

NAN recalled that INEC FCT had on March 16 postponed the area council election from March 19 to April 9 due its inability to recruit over 9,000 ad hoc staff required for the conduct of the election.

“I can confirm to you that the commission is fully ready for the April 9 election.

“We have been able to recruit the additional ad hoc staff to meet the shortfall that made us postponed the elections.

“The commission has also trained the additional adhoc staff recruited for the exercise.

“All is now set for the conduct of free, fair and credible election in the FCT,’’ Jatau said.

Mrs Ndidi Okafor, the INEC Deputy Director of Publicity in FCT, told NAN that the commission had recruited 9,374 ad hoc staff for the exercise.

Okafor added that the commission had also recruited and trained extra personnel in addition to the 9,374 ad hoc staff to address likely shortage on Election Day.

“The ad hoc staff are employed from the serving National Youth Serving Corps (NYSC) members, students of the University of Abuja and ex-NYSC corps members from our data bank,” Okafor said.

Okafor called for the collaboration of stakeholders to ensure credible and violence free election comes April 9.