By EMMANUEL OLONIRUHA

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is not recruiting new ad hoc staff for the Feb. 3 rerun and by-elections.

INEC Director of Voter Education and Publicity Department, Mrs Mary Nkem, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.

Nkem said the commission would be using its permanent members ofstaff in the affected states for the conduct of the elections.

“We are not opening any portal for recruitment of ad hoc because we are not taking new ad hoc staff.

“The commission has decided to use its members of staffwithin the affected states. If theyare not enough for certain categories in any state, we will source from nearby states.

“But for the Presiding Officers (POs) and Assistant Presiding Officers (APOs) we are going to use the National Youth Service Corps members serving within the state,” she said.

Nkem saidthe commission is highly prepared and working to conduct free, fair and credible elections.

She saidthe commission had already deployed funds to affected states, while training for the Training ofTrainers (ToT)had also commenced.

“We have held meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners to brief the commission on how far they have gone in their preparations and if there are challenges to be addressed.

“We have conducted the ToT at the headquarters here in Abuja and training ofthe personnel also commenced in states on Tuesday,” Nkem said.

The director added that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) members ofstaff of the commission had been deployed to affected states for the configuration of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to be used for the elections.

Nkem saidthe commission had no challenge regarding the number of BVAS required for the conduct of the elections, saying they would be sourced fromthe states.

“The election is not taking place in all thestates. It’s just a fraction of some of the affected states. In some cases,it is just in few local government areas as the case may be. So we don’t have issues with BVAS.

“Our ICTstaff has been deployed to states to commence the configuration of the BVAS,” she said.

Nkem also said that sensitive materials required for the elections were ready.

She advised political parties and candidates participating in the elections to play by the rules and engage in issue based campaigns without foul language. (NAN)