Nigeria Content Online

The amount to be
paid each of the hundreds of thousands of corps members who will
administer nationwide polls beginning Saturday remains unknown as the
two organisations responsible for their deployment passed the buck
yesterday, two days to the elections.

The Independent
National Electoral Commission and the National Youth Service Corps
declined to disclose the figures on Wednesday, putting the
responsibility for doing so on each other, as the bulk of the
participating corps members -2011 batch ‘A’- seem increasingly
impatient.

The corps members
passing out from the three-week orientation programme across the
country, said unlike the voters’ registration where the amount due for
participating corps members was announced weeks ahead, the NYSC
officials is keeping the information away from them this time claiming
INEC had not briefed them.

“We have not been
told till now; they said INEC has not told them how much,” a member who
gave his name as Tajudeen Usman said, irritably in Abuja yesterday. The
claim was corroborated by some members speaking on phone from some
states.

Yet, the
potentially explosive subject – as shown during last voters
registration where some corps members threatened to down tools midway
into the exercise – remained surprisingly a top secret between both
commissions as of yesterday, with each blaming the other for
withholding the figure corps member will be entitled as ad hoc staff
during the elections.

Officials of INEC,
who spoke to NEXT, said the figures had been released to the NYSC and
it was now their duty to make them public while the NYSC officials
argued that the elections are regarded as the electoral body’s
programme, requiring the commission to make every announcement as it
did during the voter’s registration.

Nick Dazang, the
Deputy Director, Public Affairs of INEC said officials of the NYSC were
familiar with the figures but declined to name the amount each ad hoc
official will be entitled to for either a single election, or for the
three comprising the National Assembly, presidential and governorship
elections.

“The NYSC officials
know what will be paid to them. I don’t have the figures but I know
there is an improvement on what they had before.

“And this time, it
is done in a way that there will be no delay like that of last time,”
hinting that the required sum had “already been paid into NYSC account
for their officials to disburse since they have the details and account
information of the corps members.”

Corroborating that
position, Kayode Idowu, Chief Press Secretary to the chairman of the
commission, said the corps members would have been informed of the
figures and how they will be paid, as of yesterday. He too, declined to
name the amount.

“It is not true that they don’t know the figure. Ask any corps member and they will tell you,” he said.

Corps members who
spoke to NEXT insisted the figures were unknown to them, against what
obtained in January when INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, repeatedly
stated that each member will earn N30,000 for the registration.

The Director for
Public Relations of the NYSC, Foluso Kolajo, said the figures should be
made available in a day or two, saying the state offices of the NYSC
had just been directed to inform the corps members.

“You know they are
just coming out of camp, so just give them like a day or two, the
figures will be made known. Every corps member will know how much they
will be paid,” she said. She too, declined to mention the figures.

A top official of
the NYSC’s Welfare and Inspection Department, which oversees the
organisation’s collaboration with INEC, dismissed the request for the
information, blaming the electoral commission for withholding the
amount.

The official who refused to be named, said only INEC can announce
the amount although she acknowledged the money had been remitted to the
NYSC.