HOW ASUU STRIKE WILL AFFECT 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS – INEC
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The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has explained how the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU would affect its preparations for the 2019 elections.
National Commissioner for INEC and Chairman of its Information and other Education Committee, Festus Okoye, expressed concerns about the effect of the ASUU strike on the 2019 elections during the opening of a one-day seminar on media gender sensitive reporting on Thursday.
The commission said that it would deploy over one million ad hoc staff made up of lecturers in federal tertiary institutions, members of the National Youth Service Corps and students of federal tertiary institutions in the elections.
The categories of ad hoc staff to be used during next year’s elections would serve as Returning Officers, Collation Officers, Supervisory Presiding Officers, and Assistant Presiding Officers. But Okoye expressed fear that the elections could be impacted negatively if the strike was not urgently called off.
He said, “It is next to impossibility for members of the NYSC to provide all the ad hoc staff needs and requirements of the commission, and over 70 per cent of the ad hoc staff requirement in some states of the federation are drawn from students of federal tertiary institutions.
Hence, the lingering strike by ASUU will no doubt have serious impact on the preparations for the conduct of the 2019 elections. We therefore call on ASUU and the Federal Government of Nigeria to quickly and genuinely resolve the lingering impasse that has led to uncertainty in the education sector.
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