Shake-Up In INEC …Directors Retired, Transferred

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja yesterday announced a massive reorganisation involving redeployment, transfer and retirement of some of its 67 directors.

The reorganisation also involved the reduction of the departments from 26 to nine while the directorates were reduced to 10.

The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mr Kayode Idowu, who confirmed the reorganisation, told newsmen that INEC had over 20 departments which had been reduced to nine.

“There are now fewer departments in the commission being headed by people who are considered best suited to make the departments functional.

Idowu explained that some departments were merged, adding the civil society, gender, voter education and public affairs, becomes the department of voter education, public relations and civil society.

He said under the exercise, the leadership would be reconfigured because the commission had a number of directors in the system and a lot of options had been put on the table.

Idowu said that the new departments would be headed by directors and there would also be directorates, adding that all the directors could not be accommodated with what was on ground.

According to him, there has been a lot of mind rubbing and nobody would be shortchanged.

He said part of the options that were put on the table were that those who had a short time left in the service were given an option of taking their pay upfront or stay and be reassigned.

The press secretary said the reorganisation was as a result of INEC consultant’s (Price Water) observation that there were over- bloated staff in the commission.

However, Idowu said the commission required a large number of staff due to its large volume of work across the country.

According to him, the commission would soon commence continuous voter’s registration in 8,809 wards in the country.

He said when the commission did the recruitment exercise in 2012, only 1,500 people were recruited and to do the exercise, there was need to deploy more workforce across the country.

Idowu said that many people would be required to work for INEC, adding that there was no excess staff in INEC.

“The number of staff we have is not sufficient, because if you are looking at the number of wards, everybody at INEC will be fully utilised.