The House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure immediate payment of insurance cover for Corps members injured or who died in the line of duty in the conduct of elections.
It gave the directive on Friday following the disclosure before the Committee by the Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.-Gen. Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu, that the insurance cover for Corps members who were injured during the 2023 general elections had not been paid.
Represented by the Director in-charge of Welfare, Omotade Folorunsho, the NYSC boss informed the Committee that two Corps members were shot during the 2023 general elections in Ukwani, and one in Akwa Ibom state leaving them with permanent disabilities.
He lamented that while the NYSC had taken care of the insurance of the Corps members, the N1 million cover in the MoU between the NYSC and INEC was yet to be paid.
He noted that poor arrangement had always characterised the conduct of elections, leaving Corps members vulnerable, adding that the Corps members were often left at their own mercies when there were eventualities during elections.
According to him, this paints a gory picture of the 2011 elections where 10 serving Corps members were killed.
“I was much younger in the service then and the responsibility of arranging the burial of these Corps members fell on my shoulder,” the director said, noting that Corps members were often poorly remunerated while participating in the elections.
“They are ₦4, 000 for three to five day training and ₦13, 500 for election day duty. In most cases, these corps members don’t even have a place to sleep. Some of them sleep on bare floors and the following day, they don’t even have water to bathe,” he said.
He suggested that the deployment of corps members be left to the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) which is part of the Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security.
After a motion to ask INEC to persuade the insurance companies to urgently pay the claims was adopted by the committee, its Chairman, Adebayo Balogun, said the Committee considered the NYSC not merely as participants in elections, but as “indispensable partners in safeguarding the integrity of our electoral system.”
He said, “For decades, Corps members have formed the backbone of election day operations, manning polling units across the federation as ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). They carry the burden of ensuring that the voting process is transparent, orderly, and credible.
“However, we cannot ignore the realities they face. Elections in Nigeria are won or lost at the polling units, and because of this, our corps members often find themselves exposed to dangers they should never have to confront.”
