By Emmanuel Uffot
In preparation for the fourth- coming 2023 General Election, the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has approved an online portal for the recruitment of ad-hoc staff for the election.
INEC stated this in a notice released on its website titled “Online recruitment of ad- hoc staff through the INEC portal for recruitment of election staff (INECPRES) for the 2023 general elections”.
According to the Commission, it approved the use of INECPRES (www.pres.inecnigeria.org) and reactivation for interested applicants who wish to serve as ad-hoc staff for the 2023 general election.
“The INECPRES is for registration of ad-hoc staff (Supervisory Presiding Officers(SPOs), Presiding Officers (POS), Assistant Presiding Officers (APO), Registration Area Technicians ( RATECHS) and RAC Managers for the 2023 General Election”.
INEC added that the help desk details were: Vanity number: 0700- CALL-INEC and email address: [email protected] while phone numbers of specific officers per state are already detailed on the portal.
The portal will be open to all eligible applicants for registration of all categories of ad-hoc staff with the exception of collation officers.
INEC added that the INECPRES ad-hoc recruitment portal would be opened to the public from Wednesday September 14, 2022 by 8am and will run till Wednesday December 14, 2022 by 8pm when it will close.
Similarly, the electoral body further disclosed that a link to the recruitment portal INECPRES is also available at the INEC website www.inecnigeria.org
According to the released by INEC, all applicants are required to fill the registration forms online using the Mobile APP for android phone only or web portal using the laptop /PCs to be eligible for consideration as ad-hoc staff in 2023 General Election.
INEC further listed qualifications for each category of ad-hoc staff to be recruited added that applicants must neither be members of any political party nor known to have demonstrated and expressed support for any candidate or party.
Another guideline for eligibility of potential ad-hoc staff seeking recruitment is that they must reside in the state they applied for and selected.
The qualifications for each position differ from staff on Grade level 10- 14 to serving corps members in the commission.
The latest development will be a sharp departure from previous elections in the past 12 years whereby the bulk of ad-hoc staff for General Elections are serving National Youth Service Corp members.
Before then, and in the build up to the dawn of the current democratic dispensation in 1999, majority of ad-hoc staff in elections in Nigeria were Primary and Secondary School teachers, University Undergraduates and School Certificates holders who then served as poll unit orderlies.
