The Independent National Electoral Commission has reassured National Youth Service Corps members participating in Saturday’s Anambra governorship election of their safety and the timely payment of their allowances.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, gave the assurance in Awka on Wednesday, noting that no corps member serving as ad hoc staff would be deprived of their entitlements.
He emphasised that the welfare and protection of the corps members remain top priorities for both INEC and security agencies, describing them as essential partners in ensuring a credible election.
Amupitan said the commission had made full preparations for the poll, including arrangements to ensure corps members are properly identified and distinguished from partisan actors.
“We are doing everything to ensure that we use them in uniform so that they can distinguish them from others, and we don’t use people within who are already partisan,” he said.
Regarding their allowances, he added:
> “As far as their allowances are concerned, we made an agreement. Let me also say that the commission has provided everything… If there’s anything, maybe it’s balance of whatever, but all those things will be adequately addressed, including allowances for corpers.”
The INEC chairman explained that security operatives under police coordination had assured the commission of full protection for personnel and materials.
“Even as we speak, some of them are already doing what we call raking the ground… they will do mopping later,” he said, outlining ongoing multi-layered security deployments.
Amupitan further urged electoral officers to maintain neutrality and ensure fairness for all participating candidates and political parties. He appealed to politicians to shun violence and for voters to reject vote trading.
“Let us end this era of voters’ apathy. They should vote according to their conscience… That is where we must intensify our role in civic and voter education,” he said.
He noted that INEC is committed to delivering a peaceful and credible governorship election that could serve as a model for future polls.
On PVC collection in the state, Amupitan said collation was ongoing and would be announced once completed.
He also disclosed that more than enough BVAS devices had been deployed across the 5,718 polling units, with nearly 1,000 extra machines provided as backup to avoid disruptions.
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