Former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Commissioner, Mike Igini, has alleged that politicians infiltrate National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) personnel lists and sew NYSC uniforms for individuals who are not corps members to serve as presiding officers during elections.
Igini raised the concern during an interview on ARISE News on Tuesday, urging the NYSC to strengthen its verification processes and ensure the integrity of personnel lists submitted for electoral assignments.
He warned that political interference in the recruitment and deployment of election personnel could undermine the credibility of the electoral process.
According to Igini, his experience in election administration showed that politicians could manipulate NYSC lists, particularly at the state level, to introduce individuals who were not genuine corps members into election duties.
He said, “What we found by way of experience in places I’ve worked was that the NYSC is usually infiltrated. The list is infiltrated and that’s why the recommendation has really been the DG of NYSC.
“You must certify the integrity of the list of NYSC because what politicians do is that they infiltrate the list, either at the state level, then we bring in people and sew NYSC uniforms for them.
“So what you find at the polling unit are people actually submitted through compromise to our own staff to conduct election at the level of the polling unit.”
Igini stressed that adopting technology was essential to protecting electoral institutions from manipulation, warning that organisations that failed to embrace technological solutions risked institutional decline.
He said, “That was why we decided that we must bring some level of embrace of technology because any organisation that fails to embrace the benefit of technology will be overtaken by the chaos or decay and decline.”
The former INEC commissioner, however, urged Nigerians not to underestimate the role of voters in protecting the integrity of elections at polling units.
He noted that only four officials were assigned to each polling unit, while voters generally outnumbered election personnel, giving them an opportunity to monitor proceedings and insist on transparency.
“But the good news to the Nigerian people is that at the polling unit you have only four officials,” he said.
Igini added that Nigeria’s 176,846 polling units provided citizens with opportunities to safeguard their votes by remaining vigilant and ensuring that electoral officials performed their duties transparently.
“The power of the people at the polling unit is awesome, and that is that in every polling unit of the 176,846 polling units of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, voters will normally outnumber them at the polling unit.
“Voters will normally outnumber poll officials at the polling unit. That’s where the power of voters lies,” he said.
