Widespread disenchantment now prevails among staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a result of the hanky-panky that followed promotional exams and oral interviews conducted over a year ago by the commission.

INEC staff in the various states of Nigeria were made to write the exams in May last year while those at the headquarters in Abuja wrote theirs the next month.

However, after the exams and follow-up oral interviews, INEC’s management under Prof. Attahiru Jega refused to effect any promotions, thus stoking anxiety and tension among the commission’s staff.

As tension heightened, the INEC management recently selected some officers from Grade Level 13 to 15 for promotion. Not a single deputy director was promoted despite the fact that deputy directors (Grade Level 16) also wrote the promotion exams and did oral interviews over a year ago.

“This has led to widespread disenchantment among staff,” a worried INEC staffer told News Express. “We do not know what offence we have committed so as to be left out after writing the exams and undergoing the oral interviews.”

Kayode Idowu, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, refused to comment despite several efforts made by News Express over a period of almost two weeks to get his reaction. First, he ignored an e-mail and text messages sent to him over the issue. When News Express finally got Mr. Idowu on phone around 4:50 p.m. last Tuesday, July 23, he said: “Please call me back; I’m in a meeting” and cut the line.

News Express thereafter re-sent the request for Idowu to state INEC management’s side of the story but he ignored our request. News Express will publish updates on the crisis which is coming on the eve of important elections in parts of the country and in the thick of preparations for the 2015 general ballot.

•Photo shows INEC Chairman, Prof. Jega.