Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission Friday denied reports it budgeted six billion Naira to feed the Police during next year’s elections.
The 2019 general elections budget of N189.2bn is subject to approval by the National Assembly and has been pending due to the ongoing recess of both legislative chambers.
But, INEC has said it does not have a specific budget to feed the Police alone, instead, it earmarked an undisclosed amount of money for about a million people consisting its officials, security personnel and ad-hoc staff.
“INEC did not budget N6 billion to feed the Police. There is no budget head for feeding the police in the INEC Election Budget,” INEC said on its Twitter handle.
“what we do have is a budget head for feeding all election personnel on election days and it covers all INEC permanent staff, ad hoc, presiding officers, supervisors, monitors, collation and returning officers and all security personnel on election duty including the Police,”
“The estimated budget for this is more than 25% less than what is being bandied around and it covers all elections including the bye, reruns, runoff and court-ordered elections.
INEC boss Mahmood Yakubu had earlier said the budgeted N189.2bn covers all expenses and necessities to ensure a successful election.
The proposed budget for the 2019 election budget has an increase of about N69 billion compared to the N120 billion 2015 election budget.
Yakubu listed increase in the number of political parties, increase in voters population and registered voters, the high cost of logistics, exchange rates, increase in the number of constituencies as reasons for the increase.