Some ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Niger State have threatened to boycott the March 11 governorship polls over alleged non-payment of their allowances.

The aggrieved ad-hoc staff who spoke to our correspondent said they have not been paid their training and election allowances for the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections that they conducted.

The aggrieved staff regretted that despite the rigorous stress and threats to their lives, they are yet to be paid their full allowances.

There was concern that the biting naira scarcity in the country would affect the payment of persons providing logistic services for the commission.

On February 24, the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, revealed that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, had provided the bulk of the cash it requested for the smooth conduct of the polls.

Narrating his ordeal, Mohammed Enagi, who was posted to Edati Local Government of Niger State, said he would not be participating in the next exercise unless he received his training and election allowances.

“I was posted to Unit 006 Tama, in Gazhe ward, Edati Local Government.

“Right from the INEC office in Edati, we were told that the place we are posted to is the outskirts of the local government.

“We took off after 10 p.m. on Friday and arrived there (Gazhe I) around 1:30 p.m. I never thought I was still within Edati, despite being familiar with a lot of nooks and crannies here. The road is very bad.

“The unit has about 700 registered voters, and more than half were on ground. As a matter of fact that unit was the most populated in the ward. The villagers were not well informed about the use of BVAS, they were not accommodating.

“They threatened us. My ink was not working. I had to devise a means by using the ink of a black pen, which was very hard to squeeze out. I had a dislocation while trying to go to a neighboring unit to get ink with a bike.

“They threatened to beat us if we did not comply with what they wanted,” Mr Enagi said.

Meanwhile, another adhoc staff member who participated as Assistant Presiding Officer Fatima Isah said she has only received N9,000 for the election duty.

“I received N9,000 on Friday, we are still expecting the training allowance. we were also given N500 naira as feeding allowance on election,” he said.

But Hassan Yerima, who was posted to serve as presiding officer in Sarkin Pawa in Munya Local Government Area, said the only money he had received from INEC was N500 for the feeding.

“I traveled to Minna all the way to the bandit-infested area if Munya, but as I speak, I have not received the training and election duty allowance. We were only given 500 for feeding,” he said.

When contacted, the head of voter education at the INEC office, Minna, Arthur Adzape, said the payments were currently ongoing. He said the delay in payment was as the result of a poor network problem.

He said, “We have so far paid 13 local government. What is causing the delay is the network problem, but hopefully the account department will finish all the payments as soon as possible”.

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