Information available to EDESON ONLINE NEWS revealed that Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is so broke that it may not be able to pay staff salaries from next month. Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, disclosed this to bewildered members of the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters, who visited INEC headquarters in Abuja, yesterday. Dr. Abdulkadir Sulaiman, who represented Prof. Jega, said: “If we don’t do anything about it on time, we may not be able to pay salary by next month.”
Following this development, the chairman called on the legislators to quickly intervene and save the situation, else the commission’s aspiration of conducting the 2015 general election in line with international best practices would be a mirage.
He also told the visiting legislators, led by the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Jerry Manwe, that the paucity of fund had drastically slowed down the pace of work on all the capital projects being executed by the commission. According to him, no other release has reached INEC as the second quarter release did not come directly to the commission.