800,000 people applied for 1500 vacancies in INEC- Jega

By The Citizen

About 800,000 people applied for the 1500 vacancies of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Prof. Attahiru Jega said this yesterday, on a monitored African Independent Television programme.

Jega denied allegations of the commissions secret recruitment of people to fill the posts which he said were well advertised in national newspapers. He also denied allegations that the commission only acted a script from the Peoples Democratic Party to de-register about 28 political parties.
The INEC Boss said all the allegations were uncalled for and very insulting to him and the commission at large.
He explained that the commission ongoing recruitment exercise was fair and in accordance to the law. He said apart from advertising in several newspapers, the advertisements were posted in state and local government electoral offices.
In his words 'There is no way anybody will say he missed the advertisement. We put an application form online and over 800,000 people applied. That information was provided.
'On the basis of the information, we did our screening. INEC wants to employ 1,500 people during this recruitment exercise and over 800,000 applied.
'There is no way you can interview 800,000 people. We have criteria for short-listing those that will be invited. For example, we are employing people for entry level positions. But people, who have Master's and PHD applied. There is no way we can employ them for the entry level positions.'
Explaining the reason behind some party's de-registration he said that the de-registration of the political parties complied with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Electoral Act 2010 as amended and that it was not to pave the way for a one-party system, with the PDP being the only party in the country.