Abiodun Alade (Lagos), Haruna Gimba Yaya (Gombe) & Mumini Abdulkareem (Ilorin)
Members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving as Electoral Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers in today’s presidential election have expressed their readiness to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
Daily Trust Saturday gathered that over 200,000 corps members have been deployed for the exercise and would form the bulk of the adhoc staff.
They have been trained on the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and other essentials for the conduct of the polls.
However, at least 100 corps members in three local government areas of Imo State have withdrawn their participation in the election over rising insecurity in the state.
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The three LGAs, Daily Trust Saturday gathered are Orsu, Okigwe and Orlu, which have had repeated cases of attacks and killings by unknown gunmen, suspected to be members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. Government facilities, including police stations and offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the areas have suffered attacks in recent times.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Imo, Prof. Sylvia Agu, who confirmed this on Thursday in Owerri, also hinted that NYSC has withdrawn corps members in the affected areas.
“This morning, I received information that all the corps members we trained to work in Okigwe, Orlu and Orsu local government areas have been withdrawn. They say they cannot go to volatile areas because these areas are terrorist areas.
“I have called the NYSC to appeal to them but I was told that the scheme has even withdrawn all corps members serving in the three local government areas so as not to risk their lives,” Agu said while noting that the commission was considering the use of students for the election.
She said freshers’ training would be organised for the students who volunteer to work in the affected areas as Presiding Officers and Assistant Presiding Officers, particularly for Okigwe and Orsu.
In Lagos, Kwara, Gombe, Rivers and other states, corps members said they were prepared to participate in the presidential election.
One of the corps members, Mato Bappa Joseph, said they have participated in a training conducted by the INEC, on the use of BVAS.
She said they were effectively trained by the electoral commission on the use of the machine, adding that she didn’t experience any difficulties operating the BVAS during the training.
However, Joseph added that less than two days to the election, they are still waiting for the logistics to enable them move to the Registration Area Centres (RACs).
“I am ready to work wherever I am deployed. But we are still waiting for logistics and I am sure by Friday, we will get logistics to move to our various RACs,” he said.
On her part, Wechie Laura Chioma said they were trained on the use of the BVAS and other electoral duties.
However, she said, “My major concern is safety, although we have been assured by the State Coordinator of the collaboration between the NYSC, INEC and other security agencies on our safety.
“We pray and hope that it shall be a successful exercise by God’s grace.”
Another corps member, Osun Ademola Richard, also pleaded with the Commission to address the issue of logistics ahead of the poll.
Speaking with Daily Trust Saturday, some corps member in Kwara State expressed divergent opinions about the training and their expectations.
According to one of them, most of them discovered where they were posted to on Friday morning.
Grace, a corps member, said she was posted to Okaka, Ilorin South Local Government, which is not far from town to her relief. “The issue of insecurity has been my major concern. I pray there is no problem at the end of the day,” she said.
Grace added that they were satisfied with the training.
On the issue of payment, she said, “Though INEC has not told us how much we will be paid officially, news going round is that we’ll be paid N30,500 for the Presidential and Governorship elections. We have not been paid for the training till now, which we learnt is about N4,000.”
Grace, however, said “We pray we don’t record any casualty. They assured us of safety and that security people will be there,” she said.
Remain apolitical, reject bribe, Corps members warned
Meanwhile, the corps members have been advised to reject gratification from politicians and food from strangers.
The Director-General of NYSC, Brig.-Gen. Yusha’u Ahmed, warned corps members serving as adhoc staff in the general elections against collecting gratification from politicians.
Ahmed, who gave the warning during a news conference in Abuja, added that corps members do not belong to any political party and are therefore to remain apolitical throughout the exercise.
“What we want to remind the corps members is that they should be careful of whatever environment they find themselves in and they should not accept any gift from any politician.
“They must not accept food from anybody; as they go, they should carry at least their service support along with them; that is all they will use on that day.
“Any form of gratification or any form of gift, we don’t expect corps members to accept. All we’re asking them to do is go and perform their duty as expected of them and leave,” he said.
