The Senator representing Anambra Central, Victor Umeh, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recruit and train more permanent personnel while phasing out its reliance on ad hoc staff ahead of the 2027 general elections.
​Senator Umeh made the appeal on Friday evening, September 11, 2026, during a live appearance on Channels Television’s evening politics program, Politics Today.
​The lawmaker, who is seeking re-election on the platform of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), argued that reliance on temporary ad hoc staff, particularly for critical duties such as result collation and returning officer roles, creates vulnerabilities that compromise electoral integrity.
​”An ad hoc staff is a temporary staff. He comes on duty, does what he wants to do, makes money, and goes away,” Umeh said during the broadcast.
“INEC should be able to have its own trained personnel to be collation officers and returning officers, so that anything that happens starts and ends with INEC. Not going to one university, go to University of Sokoto, bring the professor from there, put him in Anambra State to be returning officer.”
​Umeh commended the electoral body for its ongoing recruitment exercises, noting that the National Assembly has allocated substantial budgetary funding to expand the commission’s capacity.
He urged INEC to direct those funds toward building an in-house workforce that can be held directly accountable under public service regulations.
Umeh warned that transferring ad hoc and electoral personnel across state lines at the request of political figures erodes public confidence in election outcomes. He alleged that powerful political actors often attempt to influence the deployment of temporary staff to specific locations to serve partisan interests.
The Permanent personnel should undergo continuous professional development, creating a clear chain of custody and legal accountability for election management.
​During the interview, the Anambra Central representative also addressed broader political issues leading up to 2027.
He dismissed claims regarding regional opposition to NDC leaders as “make-believe propaganda,” reaffirmed the party’s commitment to protecting votes at polling units, and called for strict prosecution of electoral offenders.
​As of Friday night, officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission have not issued a formal response to the senator’s remarks.
However, INEC has previously maintained that temporary ad hoc workers, primarily drawn from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and federal tertiary institutions, remain logistically necessary to cover over 176,000 polling units nationwide during general elections.
