My Regret As INEC Chairman – Prof. Jega
The
Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru
Jega, on Monday reviewed his tenure as the boss of the electoral body and
concluded that his only regret was that he was unable to create a separate
salary structure for INEC workers.
Jega
spoke in Abuja during a retreat titled, “2015 general elections: Lessons and
the way forward.” which was organised for the electoral officers of the
commission where the report of the 2015 elections was reviewed.
He
said apart from the special salary issue, the commission under his leadership
performed well.
He
said,
“We have done our best as a commission under very
difficult circumstances and the major regret as I have always acknowledged is
that a major undertaking we made when we first resumed at the commission is to
have a separate salary structure for the members of staff of the commission but
we have not been able to achieve this
“And obviously this is one area where we still have
to do a lot of work and put in a lot of efforts as we move towards the future
and to improve.
“But apart from that, I don’t think we have done
badly in terms of promoting the welfare and the wellbeing of the members of
staff.
“We have ensured that salaries were paid regularly,
we have ensured that there are a lot of opportunities for self improvement
through the organisation of seminar and workshop with our partners.”
“Again as I said, we could not have satisfied the
expectations of everybody, we believe that we have done our best.
I must say that not all of you are happy with some
of the measures that we have introduced as a commission.
“The restructuring and reorganisation certainly
could not have satisfied everybody because it required trimming down the size
of the commission and also redefining schedule of responsibilities and putting
square pegs in square holes as we called it at that time.”
Jega,
who had insisted that he would leave INEC after the expiration of his tenure,
said that the 2015 general elections were better than those of 2011.
He
added that there was a lot of room for improvement and that as the country
prepares for future elections, the commission must begin to reflect on what
areas of further reforms it should focus its attention on.
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