Ahead of the October 10, 2020, governorship election in Ondo State, no fewer than 17,000 persons would be recruited as ad-hoc staff for the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
According to the Commission, the recruits comprise 15,000 corps members and undergraduates of the federal higher institutions in the country, while 2,000 would be senior staff of government institutions.
The National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, Mr. Festus Okoye, said this, in Akure, the state capital, on Wednesday, at a workshop organised for journalists in the state.
Okoye said, “The INEC will provide moral and policy guides for the election. We will deploy 17,000 ad-hoc staff; 15,000 of them will be corps members and students of higher institutions.
“No INEC staff will be engaged. But staff of parastatals, agencies and commissions would be engaged as returning officers. No collation officer will come from the federal tertiary institutions in Ondo State.
“It is Nigerians that will conduct this election. The pandemic has not stopped us from doing our work.”
The INEC commissioner reiterated that the commission would not postpone the elections for whatever reason.