More than half a dozen luxury Marco Polo buses lined up outside the commission's office in Maitama on Wednesday before departing with large numbers of staff in the late afternoon, within a heavily guarded convoy to the two states.
"We don't want to leave anything to chance," said Emmanuel Umenger, the commission's director of Public Affairs, shortly before the start of the five-hour trip.
The commission conceded on Tuesday that it faced a real threat of massive boycotts of the elections by the corps members in the state where at least four serving members died in the violence last week.
Because they were acting as ad hoc INEC staff, youth supporting the Congress for Progressive Change alleged that the youth corps members were responsible for the suspected election fraud that denied the party victory at the April 16 presidential polls.
Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, Solomon Soyebi, the commission's national commissioner for publicity, said while the fear about personnel shortage may not be so real in Kaduna State, the situation in Bauchi was grave enough that the commission planned to deploy its permanent staff for the exercise on Thursday.
He said full-time staff in Bauchi and neighboring states and the headquarters, as well as other trained ad hoc staff, were to be drafted for the governorship and state assembly polls. Authorities have said the exercise was delayed in the two volatile states to allow for greater security deployment and contingency plans.
Plugging all loopholes
Mr Umenger said yesterday while the commission still counts on the corps members and other trained staff in tertiary schools, it made the deployment to seal off exigencies.
Staff from the commission's headquarters will head to Bauchi State while those from the Abuja INEC will be deployed to Kaduna State, officials said.
Despite the security concerns, INEC staffers were upbeat about the deployment yesterday, looking forward to be selected for the trip and accepting to leave straight from the office with their luggage for the evening journey.
They attended a three-hour ad hoc training at the electoral body's office, held a pep talk with the chairman, Attahiru Jega, returned home to fetch their bags and cheerfully boarded the long buses with security personnel. Officials refused to give an exact number of staff deployed for the process.
Those in attendance at the meeting say Mr Jega advised the staff to consider their safety first, be good ambassadors of the commission in delivering their assignments and assured them of an unspecified welfare package upon their return.
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