*Redeploys 37 RECs

By Jide Ajani

Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, last week, launched an offensive against entrenched interests in states of the federation as he re-deployed the 37 Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs.

The re-deployment is with immediate effect and all the RECs have been directed to, by December 31, 2014, “conclude all handing and taking over formalities”.

The statement redeploying the Commissioners was signed by the Secretary to the Commission, Mrs. Augusta C. Ogakwu.

Sunday Vanguard learnt from usually dependable INEC sources that Jega chose this path of re-deployment to further “sanitise the Commission ahead of the 2015 general elections”.

Although this could not be confirmed from the electoral body at the time of going to press, Sunday Vanguard’s sources suggested that some of the Commissioners “may have been on the take” from their host state governments.

And whereas Jega and the Commission’s Secretary did not mention this in the re-deployment letter sent to all the Commissioners last week, it was understood that “in some instances, some RECs were hosted to such hospitalities and Afro-centric packaging in volumes that sometimes surpasses the usual remuneration from INEC”,.

It was gathered, from within the Commission’s system, that there was a handful of very committed and unflinching officials of REC cadre in whom Jega invested so much trust and who the Commission Chairman believes would not compromise, the decision to ensure that all the RECs were moved from their present posting was said to have been taken at a meeting held by and agreed to with the Commissioners.

With the re-deployment, Jega is sending a fresh signal to INEC officials that he would not condone any form of indiscipline or sabotage within the system as INEC prepares for next year’s potentially volatile general elections.

Sunday Vanguard gathered that some of the Commissioners were very cozy with their host governments, thereby creating the impression that the 2015 elections may be a mere formality in some states as the incumbents were to be retained via a convoluted electoral process.

With the re-deployment, entrenched interests, a source said, would suffer.

The table containing the states of origin and the new posting for the Commissioners is published along with this story