Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu has alerted the Senate to growing mortality rate among the commission’s staff across the nation.
Yakubu raised this alarm on Wednesday when he appeared before the Senate Committee on INEC to defend the commission’s 2018 budget.
The INEC boss traced the unfortunate trend to pressure faced by the commission’s staff at work, adding that there was an urgent need to have sickbays in all the electoral body’s offices across the country to provide first aid services to its staff.
He said, “We have instances where our staff slumped and died in office. We operate under enormous and tremendous pressure,” adding that the commission has made provision in this year’s budget for the establishment of sickbays
Yakubu said the body earmarked N9 billion in the 2018 budget estimates of the commission for hazard and other allowances of staff members on the field.
