The Local Government Collation Officer in charge of Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, Dr. Joseph Folorunso, has said some members of the National Youth Service Corps serving as ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission couldn’t operate the card readers during Saturday’s poll in the state.
He stated that they messed up the elections in some polling units as some of them couldn’t operate the smart card reader despite the intensive training the commission organised for them.
Speaking during the declaration of election results at the Kogi INEC office in Lokoja on Sunday, Folorunso, who is a lecturer at the Kogi State University, said card readers were not used in many polling units because the corps members couldn’t operate them.
The collation officer said if he had his way, he would prevent such corps members from serving as electoral officers in future elections.
He stated that some of the corps members were lackadaisical during the training, hence their inability to operate the card readers.
The lecturer advised INEC to engage only diligent and competent corps members as ad hoc staff in future elections to avoid problems.
He said, “Some of them messed up the elections because they could not operate the card readers. A senior officer approached one of them and said ‘upon all I taught you, show me how to operate this card reader.’
“You would be shocked that a corps member who claimed she attended the training could not operate the card reader. Under that disguise, they didn’t use the card readers.”
Folorunso said it was disheartening that a graduate trained on the use of a card reader was unable to use the device which was critical to the electoral process.
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