The Independent National Electoral Commission says with the 119, 973 polling units and 57, 023 voting points, it may cost as high as N884m for each party to deploy agents in all the polling units.

The INEC National Commissioner for Voter Education and Publicity, Festus Okoye, said this during an interview with our correspondent while reacting to the high cost of elections.



He said if each political party pays each polling agent N5,000, the total cost may be as high as N884m.

Okoye, therefore, rejected recommendations by the Inter-Party Advisory Council for the commission to provide funds for parties.

The INEC commissioner said, “Even political parties that have resources find it difficult deploying agents in all the polling units. We have roughly 120,000 polling units and then we will create over 50,000 voting points and at the end of the day, you will have almost 180,000 polling units.

“If you are paying a party agent N1, 000 per polling unit at 160,000 polling units, you know what that means. And I don’t think there is any individual that will agree to sit at a polling unit from morning till night without being paid at least N5, 000.

“So, if you multiply N5, 000 by 180,000 you know much that will cost. At the ward collation centre we have 8, 809 wards and each party will send agents to 8, 809 collation centres. You know what that means. So, it makes it a near impossibility for any party that does not have funds to even talk of sending party agents not to talk of doing any advert and so on.”

Okoye rejected calls for funding of elections, insisting that with the number of political parties in the country, it would be unrealistic for INEC to provide any kind of intervention for parties.

In an earlier interview with our correspondent, the Secretary, Media Committee, IPAC, Mr. Akinloye Oyeniyi, said the council was having talks with INEC on how some sort of intervention could be given to parties as was done prior to 2011.


https://punchng.com/election-monitoring-to-cost-n884m-per-party/