Governor Nyesom Wike

Okafor Ofiebor/PORT HARCOURT

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has said the legislative rerun election scheduled for Saturday, December 10, 2016, will hold in 1,840 polling units, that cut across the 23 local government areas of Rivers State.

However, the Commission has denied an allegation by Governor Nyesom Wike that it recruited card-carrying members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as ad-hoc staff for the forthcoming legislative rerun election in the state.

INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Aniedi Ikoiwak spoke when the executive members of the Rivers State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) led by the state chairman, Omoni Ayo-Tamuno, paid him a courtesy visit at the commission’s office in Port Harcourt.

Ikoiwak however stated that bulk of the voting on the election day will be in seven local government areas of the state, including Andoni, Akuku-Toru, Bonny, Etche, Ikwerre, Khana and Gokana.

He insisted that INEC is not recruiting ad-hoc staff for the election, saying that ad-hoc staff used during elections by the commission are brought in from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and other federal agencies.

Ikoiwak said, “We want to make it clear that we have nothing to do with any political party. We have where we collect our ad-hoc staff. It is very clear, we are not recruiting ad-hoc staff, that people will write application and so on.

“We collect them from the NYSC, from federal agencies and to compliment shortfalls, we collect students from the university. All the people who are being trained are either NYSC, or students or staff of federal agencies, including those from INEC. If we find out that there is any student who has affiliation with a political party, and we have the data clearly, such student will be dropped.

“That is why we challenge those who are saying it, to give us the list of those people and prove if they are not students or even if they are students, there are some who have affiliations with political parties. Yes, they are students and they have affiliations with political parties and it is proved, those ones will be dropped.”

Governor Wike had accused INEC of recruiting APC members and ward chairmen as ad hoc staff to write results for candidates of APC.

Earlier, chairman of NUJ in the state, Omoni Ayo-Tamuno, said it was regret that a number of journalists, who were carrying out their constitutional responsibility were attacked and wounded during the March 19, 2016 rerun election in the state.

He said, “Journalists have only their pen, they don’t wear bullet-proof jackets. The only thing we want is security for our members. During the last election, the car belonging one of our members was burnt”.