An INEC adhoc staff's election experience
Having been tempted to enroll and work as an adhoc staff in the Nigeria 2015 elections but my dad stopping me, I couldn’t help but hold on to the idea of what it would have been like to participate. I also kept wondering, amidst the fear of the unknown and violence in the country some young people like me especially corp members were bold enough to still go ahead with the task and work mostly for the money I suppose.
“the night before the elections , I was really in a bad mood. We had to sleep on benches at the rack center, in preparation for the following Saturday. I had a terrible time sleeping, of course I had not much choice since I already agreed to do this. The rack center as we call it is where the election materials for the ward was distributed. The following morning which was the election day, as early as 8am we left for our different polling units. At first in my unit we set up at the wrong place, the residents then had to show us another place where they say is more accessible to the residents. After setting up at the ‘right” place , the residents present, party agents present, we still couldn’t commence accreditation. For some reasons I being the assistant presiding officer (APO1) couldn’t set the time and date on the card reader machine. Yes we were trained but our training only involved them reading out their manuals and how to set up polling boots. So all my efforts to correct the error proved abortive. When I saw that the crowd was becoming angry and the party agents were beginning to boil I rushed to the nearest polling unit to us to see if the situation was the same, lo and behold it was. I found them battling with the card readers too. So we had to wait for technical support from INEC , I really don’t blame Prof Attahiru Jega for these unforeseen challenges, there were about 150,000 card readers brought into the country, they couldn’t have ascertained all to be in good and perfect condition. Anyway as the technical support fixed it, I tried to see what she was doing in case I needed help again but she shooed me off, I didn’t like it but I thought within myself she was right in a way, what if I got a hang of things and then manipulate the number of accredited cards later on. So I kept my cool and well accreditation started shortly afterwards. Over 300 people had registered and gotten pvcs for that location but surprisingly by 1.45 pm when we started voting, just 60 voters showed up. This was a bit discouraging more discouraging was the fact that some of the party agents present were drinking and smoking publicly despite having policemen around, patrol vans passing every 3hrs.
As at 4.30pm when we were certain no one was returning to vote, we started counting, the party agents present, monitoring as we counted,the presiding officer and assistants as well. In all, it wasn't a bad experience for me"
From all indications, despite postponing the elections, all arrangements made still couldn't forestall challenges. But one good thing is there was minimal violence, considering how much fear had earlier on been envisaged, one can definitely say the electoral process was a sixty percent success. As there were reported cases of attempted violence at some centers, where some adhoc staff's were held at gunpoint and asked for the state of the result after collation.
Tension brewing up everywhere today concerning who will emerge as the next president, all thanks to social media, I have had to laugh so much at various wall papers and caricature drawings with different humorous remarks. I only have one statement to make though " May the best man win"... God bless Nigeria
Although reading the punch newspaper Monday, pg3, I realized that some corp members were actually really too scared to show up at their centers, causing delays. Do I blame them? No . Anyway I have decided to share the experience of someone I interviewed, who worked as an adhoc staff in the south south part of the country, calabar to be precise.
“the night before the elections , I was really in a bad mood. We had to sleep on benches at the rack center, in preparation for the following Saturday. I had a terrible time sleeping, of course I had not much choice since I already agreed to do this. The rack center as we call it is where the election materials for the ward was distributed. The following morning which was the election day, as early as 8am we left for our different polling units. At first in my unit we set up at the wrong place, the residents then had to show us another place where they say is more accessible to the residents. After setting up at the ‘right” place , the residents present, party agents present, we still couldn’t commence accreditation. For some reasons I being the assistant presiding officer (APO1) couldn’t set the time and date on the card reader machine. Yes we were trained but our training only involved them reading out their manuals and how to set up polling boots. So all my efforts to correct the error proved abortive. When I saw that the crowd was becoming angry and the party agents were beginning to boil I rushed to the nearest polling unit to us to see if the situation was the same, lo and behold it was. I found them battling with the card readers too. So we had to wait for technical support from INEC , I really don’t blame Prof Attahiru Jega for these unforeseen challenges, there were about 150,000 card readers brought into the country, they couldn’t have ascertained all to be in good and perfect condition. Anyway as the technical support fixed it, I tried to see what she was doing in case I needed help again but she shooed me off, I didn’t like it but I thought within myself she was right in a way, what if I got a hang of things and then manipulate the number of accredited cards later on. So I kept my cool and well accreditation started shortly afterwards. Over 300 people had registered and gotten pvcs for that location but surprisingly by 1.45 pm when we started voting, just 60 voters showed up. This was a bit discouraging more discouraging was the fact that some of the party agents present were drinking and smoking publicly despite having policemen around, patrol vans passing every 3hrs.
As at 4.30pm when we were certain no one was returning to vote, we started counting, the party agents present, monitoring as we counted,the presiding officer and assistants as well. In all, it wasn't a bad experience for me"
From all indications, despite postponing the elections, all arrangements made still couldn't forestall challenges. But one good thing is there was minimal violence, considering how much fear had earlier on been envisaged, one can definitely say the electoral process was a sixty percent success. As there were reported cases of attempted violence at some centers, where some adhoc staff's were held at gunpoint and asked for the state of the result after collation.
Tension brewing up everywhere today concerning who will emerge as the next president, all thanks to social media, I have had to laugh so much at various wall papers and caricature drawings with different humorous remarks. I only have one statement to make though " May the best man win"... God bless Nigeria
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