According to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), it is more important than ever to ensure that individuals and the nation as a whole are secure enough to participate in free, fair, and honest elections.
The Corps was reacting to reports that some of its employees planned to skip the 2023 elections since they hadn't received payment for covering the Osun and Ekiti elections in 2022.
“The Corps wishes to debunk such speculations,” Mr Olusola Odumosu, the Spokesperson of the NSCDC, said Thursday in Abuja. “Thousands of NSCDC personnel will be deployed to every nook and cranny, such as critical national infrastructures, to protect the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), its staff, and election materials, all in a bid to ensure a peaceful election.”
Olusola said that Corps members who took part in the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states in 2022 had not yet received their allowances but that the management of NSCDC had taken bold steps to ensure the allowances are paid before the presidential election.
Allowances for the Osun election have been released by the federal government. They are already being distributed to operatives who performed election duty. The Corps has also been told that it would soon get election allowances for the Ekiti state election.
Odumosu said, “The recently released fund was due to the commitment and passion of the Commandant General, Dr Ahmed Abubakar Audi, mni, OFR, to ensure that staff welfare is not tampered with.
“Worried by the initial delay, Dr Audi set up an action committee, headed by the Director of Finance and Accounts (DFA), Mrs Comfort Danladi, to make necessary follow-ups with the Federal Ministry of Finance in ensuring the release of the funds.
“The cooperation received from the Ministry of finance in respect of the payment of the election allowances prompted the assurances by the Corps’ management to personnel that the process had begun, hence, the need to sue for more patience at that time.
“It is worthy of note that the CG is very passionate about the welfare of personnel and would not fold his arms and allow personnel to groan in anguish, pain or very low morale in the course of carrying out their duties, especially in the forthcoming general elections.
“Concerned personnel are therefore urged to exercise more patience as the payment process cannot be completed in one day.
“The Corps, therefore, wishes to implore those attempting to confuse the Corps not to waste their time and efforts as it will be an exercise in futility.
“The Corps is a professional body and a regimented organisation with well-trained and highly disciplined personnel that have a full understanding of paramilitary doctrines and public service rules and would not be coarse into engaging in acts of Indiscipline or sabotage against the nation.
“Personnel of the Corps are educated and enlightened enough to understand that allowances are only added incentives to salaries and not a right and that sometimes, bureaucratic bottlenecks can be responsible for such delays.
“Besides, the Commandant General has reiterated times without numbers that under his administration, “the era of monkey dey work, baboon dey chop” in the Corps is over.
“Dr Audi believed in the mantra which says “give unto Ceasar what is caesar’s,” therefore, personnel are urged not to lose faith in the Corps’ leadership, nor allow disgruntled elements within or outside the organisation to mislead or hoodwink them into taking wrong actions that could jeopardise their careers.
“The Ministry of Finance can be reached for more details about the circumstances surrounding the delay in payment of the election allowances”, he said.