JEGA ORDERS ARREST OF TWO COMPROMISED INEC STAFF

The National Chairman of Nigeria’s indepen-dent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, yesterday confirmed the arrest of two INEC Ad hoc staff for carrying out a house-to-house registration of voters in Kano State.

Weekend Vanguard gathered that the arrest was carried out with the involvement of eagle-eyed operatives of the Department of State Service, DSS, and the Police in Kano, Kano State.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, for Kano State also confirmed the arrest yesterday.
The arrest was said to have been effected at a Polling Unit, PU, in the Kabo area of Kano.
The two arrested individuals have, however, been granted bail.
In fact, Weekend Vanguard gathered from a very competent source that when the Director General of the DSS, Ekpeyong Ita, got wind of the development, he was said to have alerted Jega.
The INEC. Chairman, in his response, confirmed the arrest.
He was also said to have assured that the replacement for the two staff involved was already on. He confirmed that the arrested persons were not of the National Youth Service Corp. Shockingly, the INEC Chairman disclosed that the individuals were students who were being used to complement the manpower shortage of corp members.
He insisted that the offenders would be prosecuted. Observers are however, of the view that INEC needn’t launch into its now moribund voyage of adding 30000 Polling Units which were controversially allocated, giving the North massive advantage over the South, when it was aware that it had a manpower challenge.
And whereas INEC suspended the allocation of the controversial additional PUs last Tuesday, inside sources disclosed to Weekend Vanguard that some Commissioners in the electoral body were still bent on carrying out an agenda that would accord the North massive voting advantage – read details of this new plot in Sunday Vanguard tomorrow