Corps members lead protest against INEC over non-payment of allowance

Hundreds of youth corps members on Monday besieged the Oshimili South Local Government Area office of the Independent National Electoral Commission protesting the non-payment of their allowances.

They were on the verge of barricading the ever-busy Asaba/Onitsha Expressway before the Zonal Inspector, Venerable Njoku, dashed out to save the situation.

Also on hand to save the crisis was a detachment of policemen deployed to safeguard electoral materials at the INEC office in the council premises.

The protesters at the Zonal Office of the National Youth Service Corps maintained that they were shortchanged for training and logistic allowances in the ongoing elections since the botched election of February 14 and 28.

The Zonal Inspector had a tough time quelling the protest, beseeching them not take the laws into their hands.

The corps members, shouting: “Pay us our money, it is long overdue”; “No Payment, No Governorship and House of Assembly elections in Delta State”; “We have been used and dumped”; “We demand transparency in the system”; “We are all on national duty”; “Our colleagues in other states have been paid”; and what have you”, were also pleaded to by a detachment of policemen attached to the INEC office at the council premises.

The spokesperson of the protesters (names withheld), who confirmed that all the Batch “A”, “B” and “C” Corps members in the state in January participated in the five days training exercise, lamented some have passed out without being paid their backlogs of N1,500 per day, amounting N7,500 for the five days per person.

He wondered why other ad-hoc staff of the commission in other states were paid N10,000 each for logistics for camping, feeding and transportation and the commission is yet to pay in Delta State.

He said: “The process is fraudulent because our colleagues in the Batch “A”, who participated in the training have since passed out and nobody is talking of how they would be paid again. Is the commission waiting for us to pass out again?”

The state Director of the NYSC, Olive Essien Etakodo, however blamed INEC for the development, even as she explained that the process of transferring the payment was slow.

While noting that the postponement of the election also contributed to the delay, the Public Relations Officer of INEC in the state, Popoola James, said the commission has gone to sort out the problems.

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