Police fire tear gas at INEC ad-hoc staff protesting non-payment of allowance

Some policemen in Enugu tear-gassed ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who were protesting the “non-payment of their allowances” on Tuesday.

The protesters comprising corps members, students and workers protested at the INEC headquarters in the state where they had blocked entrance and exit to the building.

They were aggrieved over the non-payment of their allowances after being contracted by the commission during the general election.

The commission had said it recruited over 814,000 ad hoc staff for this year’s elections.

NAN quoted the protesters as saying they have not been paid their allowances for the election.

Tony Ani, a 42-year-old man who served as an assistant presiding officer, said he had not been paid allowances for both the presidential and governorship elections.

He said: “You can imagine me at this my age coming here for the past three weeks over this issue of nonpayment. I worked at Akama Primary School, Ezeagu local government during the Presidential and Primary elections and we were told to fill attendance and payment details.

“Ever since, we have not received payment and they will always tell us to write our names and account number just to pacify us, but as soon as we leave, they will trash it.”

Chioma Emmanuel, a corps member who worked at Igbo-etiti LGA, said she has not been paid any of the allowances including training allowance since the elections ended in the state.

In the same vein, a student of Enugu State University of Technology (ESUT) who preferred not to to be named, berated INEC for treating the issue of allowance with “levity”.

“The painful thing was that after failing to adequately make provision for accommodation, they still refused to pay us,” he said.

Emeka Ononamadu, INEC resident electoral commissioner in Enugu, however, claimed the protesters are “impostors sponsored to pressurize INEC into paying those that did not work.”

Ononamadu, who refused to address the protesters, told journalists those protesting were in the “third category of payment.”

“There are three sets of people we are dealing with: There are the corps members, those posted but did not work and those who were not posted but made the list because their names were subverted with that of others,” he said.

“Those protesting are those students who are not corps members and who were not posted by INEC but bribed their way through and ended up working as presiding officers and APO 1.

“Most of the protesters are in the third category of people and if you see any corps member among them, then it is either the fault of their local government inspectors or head of mobilization because they are the ones we are dealing with directly.”

Photo credit: @Coal_City