The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Kogi State has cleared the air over the continued concerns being raised by those who served as ad-hoc staff in the November 2015 governorship election held in the state, saying that the problem does not stem from them, either in the state or at the national level.
This was contained in a press statement by the Director of Media and Publicity, National Youth Council of Nigeria, Lokoja Local Government Chapter, Yabagi Mohammed.
According to the release, the Administrative Secretary of the commission, Mr. Adision Mailafiya, who made the clarification while addressing leadership of the Kogi State Chapter of National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), who had gone there on a fact finding mission, said the problem was as a result of the recently introduced Treasury Single Account (TSA) by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
It says the Kogi State Coordinator of forum of Presidents of National Youth council of Nigeria and President of the Lokoja Local Government Chapter of the Council, Comrade Abdullah Adamu had earlier told the commission that their visit was necessitated by the concerns raised by youths of the state who participated in the election exercise.
He said the youths had resolved to carry out peaceful demonstration on the matter, but that as a responsible leadership, the Youth Council decided to wade in on the matter to find out the root-cause before embarking on the said march.
Mr. Mailafiya however told the youth leaders that the TSA requires that account owners in banks provide accurate information as is in their banks, but that most of those who participated in the exercise could not do so; hence money forwarded into their accounts could not be delivered.
He said stories being bandied around about staff of the commission were false, owing to the fact that some staff were also victims of the TSA and called on members of the public to always try to crosscheck information before going public with it.
The Admin Secretary speaks: “It is sad that most of the youths who participated in the exercise are feeding on second-hand information, we wish to let them know that their money is not with any member of the commission, but with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Abuja.
“The CBN operates under the recently introduced Treasury Single Account (TSA). With the system, if a single detail does not tally with the information provided for your account, the money would bounce back, and that was what happened with most of those that participated in the exercise.”
Mr. Mailafiya then thanked the youths for being so organized and channeling their grievances in the right way, rather than employing the path of violence as a method of presenting their dissatisfaction as is the case in other climes, saying that that has shown wisdom among the youths of Kogi State.
On his part, the Commission’s Head of Accounts Department, Mallam Ahmed Mohammed, displayed their books and showed their guests some account details of those whose attempted payments bounced and called on them to be patient as they are working on resolving the matter.
Also present at the meeting were Mr. Julius Yagba (HOD General Administartion and Procurement); Mr. Ocholi Nicholas (HOD Voter Registration & ICT’), Ocheje Paul (HOD Electoral Stores) and Mr. Daniel Kure (Voter Education).
