The real thing has now started. I met a Polling Officer last week who says ANPP is offering him 60,000 naira… He asked me if he could collect it and I said, ‘Be ready to receive bullets if you receive it…’ The polling officer, who is also a youth corps member, says that the ANPP representative giving the money says it is an act of appreciation and not bribery… NS members, SHOULD THIS OFFER BE COLLECTED…

Assuming he is an ‘ordinary’ Nigerian with no stakes in the electoral process, i think he could collect it, clean mouth and do as his heart directs him when it comes to voting proper; here i am believing there are no secret cameras, no recording device or text messages to that effect. But as an appendage of the Electoral Umpire(a P.O), he will be damaging the system by doing so.

I thought that with the open secret ballot system, it was harder to rig? If the polling officer announces something so different from what people can see, won’t that cause problems for him?

With what I have noticed so far, polling officers end their assignment-days with lots of unused ballot papers which can be easily used… Yes, used in getting falsified votes..

Many Polling Officers are praying that someone would offer them even 2000 Naira. With the 7000 Naira pittance INEC is paying for such hectic and sensitive Job,any amount offered by a contesting party would be welcome. Corp members are suffering. Many of them go to the collation centers the evening before the elections because of the election day movement curfew. As a result they sleep at this schools used as collation centers with no lights,sleeping materials or any security.I know many corp members who were collating results till past 2.a.m after the House of assembly elections. Rejecting the 60,000,would be foolish and risky,because if the polling officer rejects the offer,he becomes a threat,and might be treated as one.

this what am saying, nigeria have got a new face.if it were to be in the time past,the officer would have taken the money,then procede to do whatever the ANPP candidate wants.

@uche,I agree with you. It would be quite difficult for this election to be rigged. Except it be done at the high level of State Electoral officers and higher.

News just came in that a corps member/polling officer has been arrested for collecting sixty thousand naira from an ANPP member… My friend is now glad that I advised him against collecting such an appreciative gesture.

Gej is having an upper hand in the southeast and southsouth