By Aliyu M. Aliyu
Ahead of the slated local government elections scheduled for 16th January, 2021, Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC) has announced that it will accredited no fewer than 35 election observers with good track of records for the exercise.
KANSIEC Chairman, Prof. Garba Ibrahim Sheka dropped the hints while fielding questions from Newsmen in his office, said only election observers that meet the national and international requirement for monitoring elections would be allowed to cover the local government elections
Prof. Garba Ibrahim Sheka said monitoring of the election would not be without measures so as to check influx of fake election observers and those not related to election monitoring that mostly creates chaos. ‘’We have put measures in place to allow only Civil Society Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations that are relevant to election-related issues would be accredited, ‘’Prof. Sheka noted.
The KANSIEC Boss explained that the commission has modified the method of the employment of the ad-hoc staff to be employed by the Electoral Officers so that they would not embark on favoritism and engage incompetent persons, saying they will engage about 48,000 ad hoc staff for the election that would take place in 11,000 voting points across the 44 local government of the state.
Prof. Sheka explained that electoral officers would not be entrusted with payment of their ad hoc staff like the 2018 exercise whereby many of those employed were not paid, rather all ad hoc staff must have a bank account so that their allowances can be transferred directly to their bank accounts.
The KANSIEC Chairman while assuring that the commission would be free, fair and just to all the contestants, appealed to the people to support its course in delivering a peaceful, rancor-free and fair elections.