In desperate bids to win at all cost, some candidates in Akwa Ibom State have stepped up the game, wooing ad-hoc staff engaged by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

According to Vanguard, some of the politicians and candidates were making frantic efforts to reach out to the ad-hoc staff billed to superintendent over the polls in their respective units and local government areas and been negotiating with them.

The categories of staff they are targeting include the Supervisory Returning Officers, Registration Area Center Managers and Presiding Officers.

Two university dons who spoke on condition of anonymity expressed shock over the desperation by the politicians over the polls and wondered how they were identified even before the commencement of the exercise.

‘’Before I left my house, I asked God to protect me and not allow me to be posted to where I would not be asked to compromise my principle, because that is the one thing I would never do”, said a university don, who is a returning officer in one of the local governments.

Meanwhile, a staff of the commission who did not want his name on print quoted Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mike Igini as saying that the sensitive materials of the commission were intact after the postponement of the polls.

In promising to be fair, the REC was quoted to have said: ‘’We promise that INEC will be give level playing field to all the contending parties in the elections and I state that no politician would write result at home and no one will rig this election. The votes of Akwa Ibom people must count.

•Sourced from a Vanguard report

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