The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has adopted a separate salary structure for its employees as part of measures to improve staff welfare ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Prof. Joash Amupitan, INEC Chairman, disclosed this on Tuesday while presenting the commission’s preparations for the 2027 elections at a World Press Conference in Abuja.
Amupitan said the commission had taken what he described as “some very radical steps” to improve the welfare of its personnel, arguing that better remuneration was necessary to strengthen accountability and performance.
“INEC staff are the least paid in Nigeria. So, we felt if we want to demand and hold our staff responsible, we should give them a living wage,” he said.
According to Amupitan, INEC employees are not core civil servants but had historically been placed under the civil service payment structure.
He said the commission had now been removed from that arrangement and would operate a separate electoral and salary structure.
“We are not core civil servants, but we have been lumped under the civil service payment structure, which we have just removed INEC from, to have their own separate structure, electoral structure and a separate salary structure from the civil service,” he said.
The INEC chairman said the review formed part of broader efforts to identify and address institutional gaps within the electoral system.
He added that tackling these gaps was necessary to address some of the challenges affecting the country’s electoral process.
“So, those are some of the gaps, there are many others, that we have discovered, and we felt that if they are addressed squarely, it will be able to solve some of the malaise we have with the system,” Amupitan said.
Amupitan also disclosed that INEC was making provisions for rerun elections as part of its preparations for the 2027 general elections.
He said rerun elections were provided for under the Constitution and must therefore be incorporated into the commission’s planning.
“On the issue of rerun, it’s a constitutional matter. And as we are planning for the election, you have to plan for a rerun,” he said.
According to him, the Constitution also provides the procedures and protocols that guide the conduct of rerun elections.
The review of staff welfare comes as INEC prepares for one of the country’s largest electoral exercises, with the commission earlier telling the National Assembly that it requires N873.78 billion to conduct the 2027 general elections.
The commission also requested N171 billion for its operations in 2026. The proposed election budget is significantly higher than the N313.4 billion released for the 2023 general elections.
The scale of the 2027 exercise is also reflected in the personnel requirements.
INEC said it would require about 1.4 million National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members for the elections, with 707,384 expected to serve during the presidential and National Assembly elections and another 707,384 for the governorship and State Houses of Assembly polls.
Meanwhile, INEC recently announced that Nigeria’s voter register had surpassed 103 million following the completion of its three-phase Continuous Voter Registration exercise and a final clean-up using the Automated Biometric Identification System.
The commission is expected to continue fine-tuning its personnel, logistics and operational arrangements as the country moves closer to the 2027 elections.
