2023 General Elections: INEC to deploy one million officials

• Insists Elections Must Not Cripple Governance
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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it would need no fewer than one million officials to conduct the 2023 general elections scheduled to take place in 176,846 polling units across the country.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu made the revelation at the first quarter meeting of the Forum of Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Secretaries to State Governments (SSGs), in Abuja.

Yakubu, who spoke on the impact of elections on bureaucracy in Nigeria, said the one million officials would include both regular and ad hoc staff.

Yakubu, represented by its National Commissioner, Sam Olumekun, lamented continued refusal of political parties to file their statutory returns to the commission, saying the umpire would ensure electoral outcome continued to be determined by legitimate votes.

Yakubu said: “The Impact of elections on the economy is two-fold: First, there is an unusually heavy budgetary demand on the country’s resources and secondly, several economic activities experience positive surges during elections.

“However, while we have scaled up our performance in tracking finances of political parties, we have not been receiving reports from political parties.

“Turning to the legal system, the impact of elections in Nigeria is perhaps, best illustrated by the quantum of court cases and legal challenges that multiply around the period. While the leap in court cases provides employment opportunities for citizens in the legal profession, the courts often get saturated with political cases to the detriment of civil, criminal and other cases that may be impacted by the old adage of “justice delayed is justice denied.”

Yakubu maintained that the impact of elections on the judicial bureaucracy in terms of the upsurge of cases was open to debate, added that INEC had more than 220 cases as fallouts of the conduct of elections.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government has disclosed plan to lobby states into creating additional ministries that would focus on humanitarian, disaster management and social development.

Stakeholders at the event, including the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq and Secretary to Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, were optimistic the nation would achieve the plan to reduce poverty across country.

Foruoq described poverty as the number one challenge in Nigeria, adding that distressing figure on poverty and inequality remained unacceptable. (Courtesy The Guardian: Excluding headline)